


Heart's Labrys

by MrsHamill, padawanhilary



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-12-10
Updated: 2002-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:22:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHamill/pseuds/MrsHamill, https://archiveofourown.org/users/padawanhilary/pseuds/padawanhilary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The sun is seldom temperate in Knossos.</i> An alternate reality where Our Boys live in Crete, ca. 1500 b.c.e. See bottom notes for more info on Crete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's Labrys

**Author's Note:**

> Gloriana (she of the rabid bunny brigade) pawned this one on us. She *claims* it was inadvertent. Ahem. We know better. She is guilty, guilty, guilty.
> 
> Hilary notes: It was a freakin' whirlwind! It was amazing, astounding! It ate our lives! I got to collab with terri, and I got to steal ideas from Elektra and Gloriana--that was well worth the price of admission.
> 
> terri notes: Thank you, Hilary, for putting up with me on this. Three weeks to write almost a quarter of a meg is far too little time, I think. But still, it was fun, and always a delight to work with you.

* * *

**OBIAREUS:**  
  
The sun is seldom temperate in Knossos. Neither, for that matter, is Xanthus.  
  
He stood pressed against me, languidly stroking the front of my chiton. Ai, but it was hot, and he would not leave me alone. The very _sky_ was oppressive, demonically blue and still, assisting the sun like a blanket in covering Kreta with silent, white woolen heat.  
  
"Get off, Xanthus," I mumbled, and several of the other Jheudi chuckled.  
  
"Look, Xan --" Choeros laughed, "better get him to the tents before he ravishes you. 'Go away' proves to be Obian for 'have me,' most of the time."  
  
Xanthus snorted out half a laugh at the boy who'd been teasing him and swallowed the last tiny sip of wine in his skin. "Jealous bastard." He set the pouch down to better reach me.  
  
" _Off,_ " I said impatiently, shoving at him. "Gods but you're helping the sun smother me." I braced on a knee and rose, relishing the cool of the shade against my back; we'd been leaning on the columns of the taverna, and now my sweat-sticky chiton received air. Gratefully, I shrugged my shoulders and tipped my head back, glaring at the sky.  
  
The wine was made stronger by the heat and our sweat; I was mildly dizzy, but not unpleasantly so. Xan slumped against the column and looked up at me, blue eyes burning.  
  
"We've just been sparring," I told him, by way of putting him off till nightfall, at least. He is insatiable at times, and during those times, I am sometimes glad, sometimes impatient. Xanthus is beautiful, that's sure, but ai, he clings like lichen. "Give me your skin," I said, trying to soften my harshness a bit. If I filled him up with wine, he'd be _asleep_ by nightfall.  
  
He handed his wineskin to me, giving me a petulant glare that immediately softened as I gave him mine -- still half full. There was a smudge of dust around the mouth of it, so I wiped at that with my thumb before releasing the pouch to him. His look turned suspicious.  
  
I looked away from him, sighing -- he is always so suspicious of kindness (or is it only _my_ kindness that concerns him?) -- and caught sight of a warrior I'd seen about; he was reclusive and strange. They said his body was painted, but I'd never been in the baths with him. He was faintly intriguing, if only because he was so exotic. His age alone made him unusual -- he was easily twice my years or more. The fact that he was ruggedly traveled -- they said he was from Assyria -- and silvering only made me wonder anew why it was that I found him looking at me in return. In fact, he looked at me quite often.  
  
I rather liked it.  
  
"You're trying to pamper me so I'll leave you be," Xanthus accused, bringing me back from the distance.  
  
I shrugged and took up my staff, moving away from the group of young fighters and spinning the long weapon in my hands. "If I truly wanted you to leave me be, I'd knock you flat," I said, raising my voice just enough to be heard by the baths, where the foreign warrior, Kaigan, was standing. It wasn't all true; of _course_ I wanted Xanthus to quit hanging on me like a drapery, but I didn't want him to keep me from his pallet. I liked him in that respect -- just nowhere else.  
  
"You'd knock him flat?" Evenus laughed. "Not even good enough to be partnered, but you'd take on one who finished his labrys trial faster than you?"  
  
I stared at him coolly. "He finished it faster than I did because he went in uninjured, Ev. I'd just been engaged in battle only three days before." I pointed my staff at him. "We won because of me. The labrys trial was smooth as honey after _that._ "  
  
A groan of protest issued from someone and several others glanced into the dirt or suddenly interested themselves in brushing off dusty tunics. They don't like me. This is alright -- I don't like them, either, although I was keenly aware of the warm pair of eyes on me, from the direction of the baths' door.  
  
"Take him, Xan, come on," goaded one of them, and I sighed.  
  
Xan smiled at the ground. "He's better than I am," he said, his voice quiet. I raised my eyebrow at him, a little surprised.  
  
"Ah, you're a nanny goat," that same one said, and I remembered after a moment that his name was Ilus, and that he was flat as a soldier and worthless in bed. "He'll be along tonight no matter whether you moan his praises now, or no. Take him."  
  
"Take me yourself," I said, and Ilus looked at me with blank startlement in his eyes. "Well then, that's what I thought. Stop talking with Xan's mouth." I stabbed the end of my staff into the ground, flicking my gaze toward the baths again -- my old warrior admirer was still there -- and then down at the soft clay dust I was grinding up as I twisted the staff. "Xan knows better what to do with his own mouth anyway," I muttered to myself.  
  
"That's enough, Obiareus," Jerrome said sharply, unfolding himself upright and dropping his wineskin into Ilus' hands. He was taller than I, with pale, curling hair and sun-darkened skin. I suppose the only thing I should have feared was that I'd realized too late Ilus was doing more than just holding Jerrome's wine these days. "I'll take you myself."  
  
"Pray hard," I grinned, stepping back. He came at me like a taurus whose grace had been bled out into a cow. Jerrome was a brute, and for all Ilus' lacking, I couldn't imagine why he suffered such a boor, in or out of bed. It didn't matter; I'd just as soon sweep the streets with him as look at him.  
  
"You'll be doing the praying," he grunted as I held him off, our staves crossed. "You'll be sorry you talked of Ilus that way -- and sorry for the way you treated him before, if I have anything to do with it."  
  
"I beg you, stop," I whimpered, affecting fear before shoving him off of me and darting away from his second charge. I lunged and speared him in the ribs, then took my stance again. "Ilus made his own bed -- much as he makes yours, now, I'm sure."  
  
Jerrome roared and took his staff up like a club, intending to knock my head off, if he could. He left his entire right side unprotected, so I jabbed him again and then swept him right onto his back in the dirt.  
  
Pressing the end of my staff against his throat, I asked, "Are you finished making an ass of yourself, Jerrome, or might I assist you again?"  
  
Jerrome glared at me a moment until someone cleared his throat; probably it was Ilus. Then my erstwhile rival slid his gaze away from mine, toward the sky. Satisfied, I moved my staff away from his throat and extended my hand to him. He rolled away to his side, snorting dust out of his nose, and got up from his knees, ignoring my hand.  
  
"I am the best new warrior since Heiro that the Jheudi have," I told him as he walked back to Ilus. "I can take anyone in Knossos, and like as not, anyone on Kreta. I trust you will not forget that again."  
  
No one answered. They never do. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and remembered my watcher. He had turned and was walking down the street, his dusty sandal prints brushed away by the short train of his himation. Faint disappointment filled me before I realized Xanthus was rising, moving toward me, waiting to drape himself around me again.  
  
This time, I let him.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
I first came to Kreta in search of better healers, in search of learning to heal better. When I landed at the island outpost of AkrotMri on ThMra I thought that certainly I had been mistaken, such a small island could never hold the wealth I had heard of. Then, of course, I was told I still had a ways to go. And Knossos -- now there was a revelation. I had seen cities -- I had been raised in Nineveh -- but the beauty and crowds of Knossos astonished me.  
  
And, of course, the Jheudi turned out to be more -- much more -- than mere healers. I learned from them as much as they learned from me, and I earned my labrys in this, my first summer with the Jheudi, to my surprise. But I could not find a partner, a perioikos from within my axe brothers. It was not demanded of me, but I would be considered -- odd -- without one. Not that I wasn't considered odd as it was. A tall, tattooed barbarian within the ranks of the labrys stood out, like a standing stone on a naked hill.  
  
But I am strong, and I am fast, for all that I am twice the age of most of my young axe brethren. In fact, my age had surprised the masters of the temple, for they thought one as old as I could not withstand their youthful warriors. I disproved them.  
  
So I stayed on Kreta, and I learned, and I fought. Their ways are not the ways I grew with, and so I taught as well learned -- I admire the Jheudi for being open to new ways and differences. And I kept to myself, for I have always been more about watching and listening than speaking and doing. There is one here, one who interests me. His name is Obiareus, and he is unlike any man I have ever seen.  
  
Red-gold hair -- well, that is not so unusual. There are Pharisees that have red hair, and I have seen many blond Greeks. But they are mostly dark or olive skinned, swarthy, not golden -- golden, like my lost Siobhan, like this boy. No, I should not say he is a boy, for he is an axe brother, a Jheudi warrior. He is unpaired, even as I am, but I do not know if it is for the same reasons. Not as tall as I, or even as tall as his other brothers, he is still graceful, and long-limbed. Unbearded, but his hair falls in a long braid down his back, and his fillet always matches the belt of his chiton. He is vain, I deem; a good fighter -- I have watched him in the sands, practicing -- but aware of every move he makes, thoughtful that all his moves should be as watchable as he believes himself to be.  
  
I do not know quite what to make of him, and Inanna knows what he makes of himself. I do not even know why I watch him, whenever he is within my sight. But I do. He draws my eye.  
  
He did so again one afternoon as he lounged with some of his age-mates outside the taverna frequented by the younger warriors. It had been a hot day, the sun shining like a lemon in the heavens, and my himation was already damp even though I had just come from the baths.  
  
I watched him push the dark beauty -- Xanthus, I believe, who I thought was Obiareus's perioikos -- away from himself, and then further watched as his face darkened in reaction to whatever his companions were saying. It did not take him long to pick a useless fight, one that would not be held in the safety of the sands but rather on the streets, something the masters hardly encourage. But he was obviously taken with his own prowess, and that saddened me -- a warrior who knows his own strengths better than his weaknesses will only bring pain on himself and others. He could be better than that; he should be better than that, my golden warrior.  
  
Even as the thought crossed my mind, I wondered what I was thinking. This boy meant nothing to me, he was merely another axe brother, someone to share watch with, someone to fight beside should the king demand it. I frowned as I watched him handily defeat a Jheudi twice his size and make a useless, pointless boast to the men who watched him. Oh, no, I thought to myself sharply, I know you now, Inanna, my glorious whore, you will not trap me. I will not lie with a lover again, not even at your behest. I have sworn it, goddess.  
  
Before my golden warrior could turn towards me where I stood, watching him, I turned and walked away, returning to my pallet -- alone. I had late watch that evening.  
  
 **OBIAREUS:**  
  
Xanthus panted over me, the bliss in his eyes quickly fading to a look I'd come to fear: the half-comfortable look of a man who was about to fall asleep. He rested on my chest only briefly before I pushed at his shoulder.  
  
"Xan. Don't dare fall asleep on me, you," I warned, hissing in the darkness. The barracks were full of sleeping Jheudi, and I was not interested in making them angrier than my victory over Jerrome already had.  
  
"Why not?" he mumbled, settling himself again. "You're warm and comfortable."  
  
"I'm _not_ comfortable, you ox," I countered, and pushed at him. "You've already weighted me into the stones once, and my bones ache. Get off."  
  
Sighing, he did, to my relief. I shivered as he raised himself without preamble, unsheathing me from his body and rolling to the side. He wrapped an arm about my waist and tucked his face against my neck.  
  
"Xan," I pleaded. "Don't. I cannot sleep like this." I extricated myself from him and took my rumpled chiton up from the foot of his pallet.  
  
He caught my arm in his long hand. "Why do you do this? Why not stay?"  
  
I looked at his beautiful, dark features in a bare sliver of moonlight. He was slender and long, every part of him; that was what had drawn me to him. His hair smelled sweet, and his touch was warm and firm. Still ... his eyes were dangerous. They were soft and wanting, beyond the desire for pleasure.  
  
"Because you press too close," I said, a truth, but not only in the way that he thought. I left my fibulae unfastened, belting the chiton about my waist loosely and taking up my fillet.  
  
"It isn't only that," he argued softly, sounding sad in a way that twisted my heart. I shoved the feeling down ruthlessly.  
  
"Don't presume," I snapped. "My reasons are my own."  
  
"Very well. But I do not think you should let Heiro's memory dictate where you--"  
  
His words ended in a grunt of surprise as I pinned him to the floor, my hand square in the middle of his chest. "Do not presume," I breathed dangerously. "Do not mention Heiros to me. My brother's death has _nothing_ to do with you. Your tenure with me is perilously close to over, Xanthus, if you continue in that vein." I studied him in the dimness a moment, then released him, brushing at the place where I'd put my hand. "I know you enjoy these tumbles as much as I do; best not waste the time with useless talk." So saying, I rose.  
  
"Someone will catch you one day, Obiareus," he murmured to my back as I walked away. "What will you do then?"  
  
I said nothing, only left the barracks altogether. I did not go back to my pallet, but stepped out into the clear air to shake the sex from my head. Quickly, I unplaited my hair and combed it through with my fingers, wandering toward the outcropping that overlooked the palace.  
  
Ai, but I did not know what to do about Xanthus. Perhaps it was time to let him go; he irritated me like a badly-placed grain of sand, but he was not all bad. He needed to find someone who suited him more.  
  
I turned my thoughts away from Xanthus. The night was clear and cool, and there was a faint breeze. I thought perhaps it was pleasant enough for me to make my way back to my mother's house, rather than sleep in the barracks. I did not want my first waking vision to be of a pouting, petulant Xanthus.  
  
The gods are full of humor about the weather; they send the breezes at night and leave us stifling in still heat during the day. But the ocean shone in the moonlight, and that made up for the fickle smiles of the winds. I sat on a rock that was still warm from the sun, and began to braid my hair again.  
  
A shuffle in the dust behind me made me turn slightly as my fingers continued to work: it was Kaigan, the foreign Jheudi. I looked at him curiously and he continued to look at me -- for he had been, when I'd turned -- but we said nothing. I turned and looked back out over the ocean, wishing I could find my tongue enough to ask him about the markings I had seen on his arms, or who it was he watched with tonight, or where he'd traveled. Instead, I stared at the water and tied my hair, sighing a little. The breeze tickled, and so did my curiosity. Finally, I pulled in a breath.  
  
"You came on one of the king's ships, is that not so?" He was silent. I continued to watch the water for a moment before turning about. "Well?"  
  
He was gone. That strange, warm disappointment crept upon me again, so I shoved it aside and rose, considering going to Xanthus and suffering his heat all night. Instead, I went to my mother's house and found that the temperate wind truly did feel cold against my skin. In all my eighteen summers, I have never truly felt alone: now, I did.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
It was the next day that the one called Xanthus approached me with the oddest request. He sought to trick me, I think, for he told me a blatant falsehood in the hopes that I would -- what? Humiliate his perioikos? I don't know of a certainty.  
  
"And what is this, um, ritual called, then?" I asked him, making myself comfortable on a deeper ledge of the bath. Xanthus had spoken of a custom amongst the Jheudi where one warrior -- normally an older one -- would 'kidnap' another -- normally a younger -- and take him out of the town to a place where they could be alone to train and learn from each other. It sounded familiar ... I may have read about it when I first came ... I would have to check. I think Xanthus fell into the ready trap that many of my axe brethren did; assuming that because I was a barbarian in their eyes, I did not know of Greek ways.  
  
"There is no real name to it," he hedged, looking over his shoulder briefly. Two other Jheudi I had often seen with Obiareus lounged on the benches near the steam rocks, every so often glancing casually our way. "We just call it Philetor and Kleinos, actually."  
  
"Lover and beloved?" I asked, hiding my grin at his dissembling. "And this abduction, it is with his full knowledge and consent?"  
  
"Of course," Xanthus replied, obviously flustered at my knowledge of Greek. "It's only a formality. The origins are lost in the mists of time," he added, piously repeating that which the elder masters had often told me. I had little time for their ancient customs; this obviously _not_ ancient custom I had even less time for.  
  
"Why me?" I asked, surprising myself. "Why do you want _me_ to do this? You're his perioikos, wouldn't it make--"  
  
He interrupted me. "I am not his perioikos," he said tightly, looking down into the water.  
  
I blinked. "Ah," I said stupidly. "I apologize, I thought ... hmm." He wouldn't look at me, but the information he imparted was surprising -- and telling. Perhaps ... But no. I had no time for this, no time to participate in the prank this boy was obviously trying to pull on Obiareus, for whatever reason.  
  
But I hesitated, even as I readied the words to refuse his most generous offer. Two months out in the mountains of Kreta with Obiareus, ostensibly to teach him the ways of paired battle -- the real reason could be released. Perhaps this would be a good way of learning whether the boy -- the man, I corrected myself -- had the true heart of a warrior within him. Something inside of me whispered that I should take this bogus offer, despite my misgivings. I spoke sternly to it, but the whisper ignored me.  
  
"Let me think on it," I finally growled to Xanthus, probably more harshly than I had intended. "I will give you my answer tonight, after late meal."  
  
Hope flared in Xanthus's eyes, as did something else that I shied away from naming. "That would be well," he replied, his tone of voice rigidly controlled. "Thank you for your consideration." He levered himself out of the bath and walked to the steaming rocks, seeming to casually saunter though I suspected he was not.  
  
I raised myself and stepped out of the soaking tub, water sheeting from my body to drain back through the tile floor. Keeping my mind blank, I used a handy sheet to blot myself mostly dry before pulling on my breechclout and my chiton. I only fastened one of the bull horn fibulae, though, and carried my sandals and himation rather than donning them -- the day was yet another hot one.  
  
Emerging from the baths, I frowned in the sunshine, and reluctantly found myself walking toward the watch officer's office. I was certain when I arrived, I would ask for two months leave for myself and Obiareus, despite the fact that I felt your dainty little hand all through this situation, Inanna, my lovely goddess.  
  
Well, so be it then. If you are willing to manipulate, Inanna, perhaps I can manipulate you in turn.  
  
 **OBIAREUS:**  
  
I should not have gone home. I should have suffered Xanthus alone. No; I thought I would hide a bit, retreat to the safety of my mother's house. It was true; I had slept well enough in my own, cool bed, without a lover beside me, but there was nothing safe about her house on the following day.  
  
"I have sent a runner into town for our friend Palaemon," she told me coolly as she chopped the heads off the fishes for dinner. "He will be with us for late meal. Be good for me, son."  
  
I gritted my teeth, grinding the wheat. "I will not gift him with that honorable title."  
  
Mother tipped her head back and sighed. "Oh, Obia, be kind to me and do not cause him strife tonight. I may yet live in the town nearer the Senate, and I would not have this chance spoiled by old wounds."  
  
I slammed the pestle down. "I will not be in the house with him. You know good and well, Mother, this is _not_ an old wound -- I live with it day by day! And I know that Palaemon --"  
  
" _No,_ " she said sharply, stabbing the knife into the fish and the board. "We will not speak of that here. Heiro's death was an _accident_ ; you dwell far too much on it for the years that have passed. You _will_ attend the meal with me, and you _will_ present a good face toward Palaemon. The runner goes to fetch Xanthus as well; that should cheer you well enough."  
  
I sighed, cringing inside at the idea of Xanthus, Palaemon, and myself all at the same table. "You would do well to run me through like that fish. I cannot tolerate this, Mother. Palaemon is embedded in the Senate; he will not pry himself loose for you, can you not see that?"  
  
"He is very _well_ embedded in the Senate, and I do not want him out of it; I want myself with him. Now go and see if Jormo has finished with the goats; I need that milk."  
  
I sighed and went, unable to do other than bend to my mother's will. She has always been a fine parent to me, with the exception that she still complies with this politician's every whim. Together, they are insufferable, bickering and fighting and nagging, but apart, they are fine enough. It is well they are not married, I tell myself, though their ... relationship, if it is such, makes me uneasy at best. Palaemon has his rooms with the other Senators, and mother has the country estate. If she moves too near -- or worse, _into_ \-- the town like the man claiming to be our friend, then she will be gone from me, lost in a whirl of politics and trifles.  
  
I had already lost my brother. I will not lose my mother, too.  
  


* * *

  
Jormo was indeed done with the goats. I carried a small vat of milk up to the house and set it by the basin. "Mother?" I called. "Mother, the milk--"  
  
"Mother's gone out to the orchard," Xanthus said, rounding the corner, his arms full of freshly-washed bowls for the table. "Ai, but she needs to take a lover; I am always set to work when I come."  
  
"You need to be set to work," I teased, though I was not of a mood to play much. "You are a lazy sod otherwise." Still, I felt a strange kinship with him now that I was on the cusp of a nightmarish meal with the scorpion, Palaemon.  
  
He smiled at me, but there was something cold there. I thought he must still be angry with me for leaving him in his pallet alone. But immediately he moved close, looping an arm about my waist and holding up the wineskin he had strapped to his hip. "Look what I have, Obia. From my father's honey, and some of your mother's cherries. Married in the wine." He smiled slyly and I pulled away from him, disliking his hinting.  
  
"I was only playing, Obiareus," he almost snapped. "You are wretchedly moody of late. Or is it that you grow tired of having me in your bed?"  
  
I sighed. "Xan, Xan, please ... you are my only hope tonight; please don't look to fight with me."  
  
The coldness did not leave my lover's eyes. "Poor Obiareus. Whoever looks to fight with you would lose, is that not so? You have nothing to worry over."  
  
Studying him, I wondered at his cryptic reply and then simply reached for his wineskin. "Let me try the fruit of our parents' married crops."  
  
Smiling, he handed me the wine.  
  


* * *

  
Palaemon droned on _endlessly._ Ai, it was all I could do to stay awake through his ramblings about the Senate and the king and Minoan imports to Troy and Aegypt and on, and on ... Xan watched me closely, faintly amused, it would seem. Though I was bored out of my senses, it could have been far worse. Xan's wine was good and strong and he'd told me he had more along, so I drank and allowed myself to grow sleepy and languid. Soon, I did not care that Palaemon never silenced himself. Eventually, neither did I care that mother leaned too close to him -- I knew she was only clinging so that her chance at town life grew, and grow, it did -- every time Palaemon put his hand high on my mother's thigh.  
  
My head had begun to throb pleasantly with the wine; I was warm and soon tipsy, eventually enough so that I could nearly convince myself that Palaemon was not a complete idiot. Nearly. To avert the subject of him from my thoughts, I addressed my mother.  
  
"What'd you think of the wine?" I said, holding up my goblet tipsily. "Xan brought it." I patted Xanthus' hand on the table. "Good wine, Xan. Oh -- she hasn't had any!" I offered my mother the goblet even as she stared at me sternly.  
  
"Ai, Obiareus, don't," Xanthus said quickly, scooping the goblet straight out of my hands even as my mother reached for it. "How rude of you; offer her a cup of her own." He poured some from another wineskin he'd brought with him.  
  
"Thank you, Xanthus," Mother said sweetly, taking the wine and tasting it. "Oh it is perfect. Your father has such a hand for it. Tell me, Obiareus, when will you stop this dallying and join a perioikos?" She smiled at me, then at my would-be partner.  
  
"Not," I said, tipping my head down muzzily. "I don't need a perioikos. I fight with whom I am sent, and well enough. No one to hinder me." My eyes blurred and I blinked.  
  
"We shall see, hm?" Xan smiled enigmatically. He turned back to my mother. "Tell me, Mother," he said placidly, and I gritted my teeth; I hated it when he addressed my mother as his own, "have you seen the new Jheudi warrior? He is quite intriguing; I am sure Obia agrees." He looked at me sidelong in a way that made me narrow my eyes.  
  
"I have seen him," Palaemon broke in. "He is unusual, to be sure, and savage." He sipped his wine. His tone was decidedly lecherous, and Mother, to my surprise and discomfort, looked quite indignant. The idea of Palaemon gazing _that way_ on Kaigan's form made me feel strange.  
  
"'Savage' he may be," I said, as calmly and slowly as I could in an effort to keep my words clear, "but he is a worthy fighter. I have seen him in the sands. He knows surprising battle movements that are very valuable." The last word drew itself out of its own volition, so I fell silent, lest I be mistaken for drunk. Dear gods, that wine was strong; I really had not consumed as much as I _felt_ I had.  
  
Palaemon waved his hand dismissively. "His fighting skills come to nothing if he will not mesh with the other fighters. He is alone far too much; he has no sense of kinship. Loyalty is crucial." He sighed heavily. "Ai, but I knew that the Jheudi's numbers would decline. It seems they will allow anyone in of late."  
  
Hot anger welled inside me. "You are an ungrateful wretch," I snapped, far too angry for the subject. A small voice in the back of my mind told me that Palaemon was only being as he always was: pompous, nasty and prejudiced. But I rallied on, too angry now to stop. "We are who we are for the protection of the King and the Senate; we see to it no one disturbs your closed doors and discovers you bending women -- _and_ men -- over for political gain. We see to it _you_ are safe at home while we are directed about by your filthy hand. Do _not_ speak of Kaigan that way, for you offend the heart of the Jheudi so."  
  
My mother sat, staring and shaking, for a long moment. I glared between her and Palaemon until she said softly, "You shock me, my son."  
  
My venom spilled over. "Do not speak to me of 'shocking,' woman," I hissed. "I have stood by you while you waited, tugging at Palaemon's chiton like a quailing babe. I have tried to be patient, tried to understand your need to be ..." I struggled, hesitating, then spit the words, "as they are." It tasted foul in my mouth, but even in my drunken state, I understood the truth of it. "Your desire for gain at my expense, your desire to see me married off or paired to another Jheudi for the sake of your face is disgusting. I have had enough."  
  
So saying, I glared a moment longer, swayed briefly, and then turned and left, headed resolutely for my rooms. I wanted nothing more to do with this conversation; it had made me angry enough. The difficulty lay in the fact that Xanthus was now murmuring consolingly to my mother as she sobbed quietly.  
  
"... .doesn't understand," he was saying, and there was a pause in what I heard as I readied a satchel. "... .me talk to him, Mother. ... important moment ... need your help. ... a Philetor."  
  
I snorted. "Do not falsely comfort her, Xanthus," I said, less strongly than I'd intended. My voice was weakening, stretched thin, and I thought perhaps I would sit a while. My head spun, so I put it in my hands. "I will not take a partner, and no Philetor presents himself," I added after a long pause. There was no answer, and after a moment I stretched out on my pallet. A bit of sleep could not hurt. I did not think I could make it to the town proper in this state.  
  


* * *

  
"... up," I heard, dimly. "Get up, Obia. Come on, sweet one, get up for me." The voice was distant and deep, a melodious hum in my ears, even though it sneered at me. A pair of arms lifted me somewhat, dragging me from my pallet.  
  
"Kaigan," I murmured, and the arms stiffened and nearly dropped me. I clutched at a pair of shoulders and let my head loll. "Take me away, barbarian. Take me from them all."  
  
"Ai, make him shut up," another voice said, and a grunt issued from the chest against which I was supported.  
  
Cold water was slapped onto my face and I drew in a sharp breath. I exclaimed something wordless and opened my eyes, glaring into the face of Xanthus.  
  
"It is the night, my sweet fish," he said, his voice cold. "Come to the flagstone. I will vouch for you."  
  
"Voush?" I murmured. "I want sleep. Jus' let me sleep." I tried to turn away but found myself held quite firmly.  
  
"Gods, keep him quiet, why don't you?" the other voice said. I realized distantly it was Choeros. "I am going to the gate."  
  
"You'll be paid well enough," my erstwhile lover said as Choeros left. Xanthus did not sound like himself. He seemed very angry, very cold, unlike the moody, clingy boy who shared my bed.  
  
"What is wrong with you?" I asked, struggling to open my eyes. "Did Choeros come to the dinner party? Has he met the venerable old Senator fucking my mother?" I raised my voice, hoping she would hear. I thought all the world should know; it would make plain all of her sweetness to strangers and people from whom she thought she could extract gain. "I wish I had only seen it!" I said loudly, as though I'd spoken of my mother aloud.  
  
Xanthus tried to shush me. I batted his hands away and then caught them in my own. He looked at me, puzzled and, I thought, a little afraid. "I am not tha' drunk," I slurred. "Come, tussle with me one last time."  
  
"One last time!" he choked out. "Why would you not think we'd have a thousand nights before us?"  
  
I shook my head sadly, blinking. "Xan ... oh, Xan. You cannot keep me. No one can. I will not stay in your bed. I am, as you said, yet in too much grief." I sighed and shook my head again, then stilled it as the world spun a moment. "Heiro cannot be recovered and Palaemon cannot be redeemed, and it is wrong of me to hold you at arm's length so."  
  
He threw his head back and laughed. Laughed at me. "You drunken sot, you bastard, now it is too late for heartfelt confessions. Now, when I thought I would teach you something, you close yourself off to me." His voice turned sneering. "Then I shall send you on your way with false blessings instead of the real ones you and I should have shared."  
  
Before I could puzzle at his words, he was there: my own barbarian.  
  
 **KAIGAN:**  
  
It was long before late meal when Xanthus sought me out again, demanding to know if I had made up my mind. He told me that it would have to be that evening, since Obiareus was with his mother at her house and he had set everything up with his friends. Though I still had my misgivings, and I greatly disliked being rushed, I told him yes, and he told me what to do.  
  
So it was with a growing sense of unease that I followed Xanthus' directions to the villa just outside of Knossos. It was surrounded by lemon and cherry trees, as well as a high wall, and was made with the white stone that is so prevalent in the area. Low and sprawling, it purely radiated money and influence. I readied excuses to leave should Xanthus' ruse be exposed.  
  
It was full dark by the time I arrived, but Choeros -- another 'friend' of Obiareus and Xanthus -- met me at the gate and led me around to the rear of the house and the flagstone yard where my 'victim' sat, with Xanthus and several emptied skins of wine. He saw me as I emerged from the darkness of the screening and blinked owlishly at me for several moments before my presence seemed to actually register. Xanthus must have done his job well, for the boy seemed to be well and truly sloshed.  
  
Xanthus looked up and then turned to see me, and smirked. I have never liked that particular expression, and on him it was exceptionally irritating. "Ah, I see your Philetor is here, Obia," he said, turning back to Obiareus.  
  
"Wha ... ?" Obiareus said, frowning. "My what?"  
  
"If you have come, sir, to take advantage of our friend, we wish you all good luck," Xanthus said, standing and motioning to me to come closer. "Because you're going to need it," he muttered under his breath, assuming, I thought, that I couldn't hear him. I gave him a sharp look but moved to Obiareus' side.  
  
"Would you come with me, my Kleinos?" I asked him softly, putting my hand on his arm.  
  
He looked up at me then at Xanthus. "Xan ... what have you done ..." he slurred, then when he tried to stand, he wobbled. Dear Inanna, how much wine had Xanthus plied him with? He would be no good to me in his cups.  
  
Xanthus was continuing to smirk, and I wanted nothing more than to wipe that look off his face with my fists. But I don't suppose the labrys masters would approve. Instead, I turned to Obiareus. "I would ask you to come with me, my Kleinos," I said softly, trying to keep Xanthus out of our conversation. "I have arranged for leave for both of us."  
  
"I don't ..." he staggered again, and I caught him, drawing him close to myself. "Xan ... what are you ... what is ..."  
  
"Your pack, sir," Xanthus said, pointing to a bundle placed against the wall. "Packed with loving care by your mother, who wishes you all the best."  
  
Obiareus looked horrified, and I wondered just what exactly was going on here. "No ... I can't ..."  
  
"Ah, but you can," Xanthus said, and his voice turned snide. "I told you you'd be caught some day, Obia. Well, this just might be the day -- and with someone _perfectly_ suited for you as well. I couldn't be happier for you." He turned on his heel and stalked away.  
  
Had I not had Obiareus to tend to, I would have followed him and beat the truth out of him. Instead, I looked down into my Kleinos' white face. "Are you all right?" I asked him. He was trembling, but managed to focus on me.  
  
"My barbarian," he slurred, and suddenly slumped, boneless, in my arms. "My lovely barbarian. Are you painted all over, I wonder? I'd like to see. Why do you watch me, Kaigan? I like it when you watch me ..."  
  
He was sounding less and less coherent, and so, with a pained sigh, I hoisted him up over my shoulder. There was no way he was walking to our campsite. Carefully, I picked up his pack and mine, slung them over the opposite shoulder, and walked out into the night, not looking back.  
  
Inanna, you selfish, conniving ... What have you gotten me into? What have I gotten _myself_ into?  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
Ai, gods, gods above and below, my head hurt.  
  
"You stir," Kaigan observed, his quiet voice booming through my head as though he had shouted into my ear.  
  
"Ahh," I groaned. "Separate this beastly thing from my shoulders, I beg you." I clutched at my skull, moaning and trying to hide from the vile sunlight that pierced my eyelids.  
  
Kaigan sighed. "I did not know that the Kleinos was obliged to drink himself into senselessness, only assisted helplessness." He turned away from me and rummaged about in something, and slowly it came to me that I was not in my mother's house, not in my bed with Xanthus clinging gratefully to me now that he'd managed to secure a whole night in my arms.  
  
"What--?" I levered myself up, startled, and then moaned and shut my eyes tightly. "Ahh, gods, where _am_ I? What are you doing here?"  
  
There was a moment of silence. "You do not remember." His deep, rumbling voice did not sound a bit surprised. "We are in the woods, away from town." At my startled expression, he tilted his head and raised his hand. "Do not worry. Your mother prepared you a suitable sack of clothing and personal effects, my Kleinos." The last word was upturned in cool sarcasm.  
  
I stared at the grass in front of me, gingerly folding my legs and then resuming my clasp on my head. "Kleinos. I-- _Kleinos_?" I all but demanded, then quieted again as my head protested.  
  
"You agreed to this," he said, but I could tell that he was only trying to sound sharp. I ignored the ache in my eyes as I stared at him. "You did," he insisted, only a bit less certainly now. "Your mother packed. Your -- Xanthus was there, as was Choeros. We were witnessed off with blessings." His voice had begun to sound less sure as he talked and my expression grew incredulous.  
  
"I did not _agree_ to this," I managed to whisper. "What -- ai, the wine." I rubbed at my head, realizing that Xan's father's new batch of wine had not been the problem. In all the months and years of sharing the meads and wines Xanthus' family produced, I had never been so ill-affected.  
  
"I should have known," he said, his voice now resigned. "I am a fool for having believed him." Quietly, he explained how Xanthus had come to him and "informed" him of the custom of Philetor and Kleinos, convinced him all was well, that I was amenable. The treacherous snake had lied for the sake of avenging his wounded infatuation of me.  
  
"Bastard," I sighed weakly, and slumped back to the pallet. Turning to my side, I saw that I lay on my own himation in the grass, without even a suitable pallet. "I must get back to town. I am expected at watch tomorrow."  
  
Kaigan shook his bearded head, and, pained yet further, I looked at him sharply. "No, you are not. I -- you truly remember nothing?"  
  
I covered my eyes with my hand. "I remember insulting Palaemon. That was, perhaps, the most enjoyable moment of the evening."  
  
To my surprise, the barbarian warrior chuckled. "I'll wager it was." He rummaged around again, and I saw that he was digging about in a pack. He retrieved a skin and I swallowed down a retching impulse.  
  
"Ai, gods, I would sooner die," I moaned.  
  
Saying nothing, he poured a small amount of something into the skin and pushed it at me. When I pulled away, turning my face to the side, he pressed it at me and said sternly, "It is water, you stubborn boy. Water and herbs for your head. Drink it all; it will calm your stomach and ease the pain." When I hesitantly took the thing, he rose, sighing, rubbing at his own head, scratching at his beard, deeply in thought.  
  
I sniffed of the water; it smelled faintly of pepper and something green. Drinking a bit, I winced at the bitterness.  
  
Kaigan did not so much as turn around. "All of it," he insisted firmly, staring off over the dry grasses.  
  
So I drank it, relieved after a little while that my stomach stopped roiling and my head, though still hurting, eased considerably.  
  
"What are you going to do with me?" I asked his back quietly.  
  
Kaigan remained unmoving, staring out over the burgeoning day, arms folded across his chest as though he were a great sentry of the field. "That is the question," he replied, and I moaned and pulled a corner of my himation over my face.  
  
 **KAIGAN:**  
  
Obiareus seemed to be further into his cups last night than I could have believed. Either that or -- No. I won't go there, not yet. But to have him sleep this far into the day and behave as strangely as he did last night ... I do know that when we return, I plan to have words with that little snake Xanthus. I believe I understand now why he is not Obiareus' perioikos.  
  
I stood and contemplated Mount Psiloritis in silence while Obiareus drank the medicated water I had given him. Far across the Amari Valley, I could just see Gournia's white buildings shining in the sun -- no, we would go south, skirting the White Mountains to a small, enclosed valley I had found on my first wander about the island. Kreta is a lovely place, with a wild and untamed beauty that is wholly its own. The oleander and lavender were blooming in the late summer heat and sent up a fragrance that could stun a man insensible were he not cautious.  
  
So, we would go south. Or would we? It didn't surprise me over much that Xanthus had tricked Obiareus into coming with me. What did surprise me was my inclination to stay with him, to keep him with me for the next two months. Frowning into the distance, I tried to look at the impulse from all sides, to examine it dispassionately. Again, I can feel my patron goddess' little fingers in things; Inanna, you are trying to manipulate me, to get me to do things your way. What I need to know is, is your way the way I really wish to go?  
  
"What are you going to do with me?" I heard Obiareus ask softly behind me. Good, the medicine must be taking effect, then.  
  
"That is the question," I replied, not turning. He moaned with some theatricality and I heard him flop back onto the makeshift pallet. After a moment, I continued. "There is a small enclosed valley about a day's walk south of here," I told him, my voice pitched softly in deference to what must be a still-aching head. "We can pick up the path a bit over that way," I said, pointing my chin over my left shoulder. "There are caves there, a couple of streams, soft grasses and a hot spring that is lovely for bathing." I turned enough so that I could see him out of the corner of my eye. "I had thought to spend the next two months there, with my _Kleinos_."  
  
Although I imbued the word with as much sarcasm as I could, he still glared at my use of it. "I am _not_ your Kleinos," he nearly spat, then winced when his vehemence caused him a pain.  
  
I kept my smile inside. "I don't believe that is for you to say," I told him mildly. "If my understanding of the custom is complete, you can deny that I am your Philetor, but not that you are my Kleinos."  
  
"I deny both!" he said hotly, sitting upright. That must have been a mistake on his part, for he clutched at his head. "Oh dear gods, what was in that wine, Xanthus?" he moaned.  
  
I frowned. That had been my thought too. But I shoved it aside in favor of other things that had to be settled now. "When you are ready, I have some fruit for you to eat," I told him. "There are always rabbits and deer around that canyon; we can hunt our dinner tonight."  
  
"The only place I am going is back to the barracks," Obiareus bit out. "Since I have denied you being -- whichever -- both -- there is no reason for me to stay. Or do you want me to bring the labrys masters down on your head for illegal abduction?"  
  
"It could hardly be construed as illegal when your own mother conspired in it," I informed him archly. "And my intent was not to follow this ridiculous custom at any rate."  
  
He swallowed again and actually met my eyes for the first time since our conversation began. "Oh, is that so?" he asked, and though his words were sarcastic, his expression was slightly wounded.  
  
"You do not have a perioikos," I told him gently. "You are a fair fighter--"  
  
"I am the best fighter--"  
  
"Yes, I've heard that boast," I interrupted him in turn, raising my voice as he raised his. "You are young, and you have a lot to learn. I would be pleased to--"  
  
"There is _nothing_ I could learn from you," he said scornfully. "A barbarian from some country behind the sun. I am a son of Kreta, and there is no reason for me to stay here and listen to this!"  
  
His words stung, I'll not lie Inanna, but I knew the truth behind them. In his cups last night, he called me his lovely barbarian. There is truth in wine, and so his words now -- though intended to hurt -- were not true. I simply stared at him, trying to keep my expression mild in the face of his unreasonable wrath. I could tell that his heat had driven away the last of his disability, though, so it was not all bad.  
  
When he saw I was not going to reply to his barbs, he flushed and looked away. Rising, he snatched up his himation and looked about for his pack. "If you are so certain of your prowess, then," I finally said, "perhaps you would be interested in a wager."  
  
"What." He didn't even bother looking at me and that only fueled my displeasure and desire to teach this arrogant boy a lesson he'd not soon forget.  
  
"Along with our labrys, I have brought our staves here," I said, indicating them. I would not go into any wilderness unarmed. "Think you then, that you could best me in a fight with either? If you are able, I'll not hinder your return."  
  
"And if I am not?" he asked, suddenly stilling.  
  
"Then you stay with me for these two months," I told him. "I will fulfill my end by teaching you what you do not know." I raised my eyebrow at him. "Either way, it seems to me, you win."  
  
He stood frozen for a moment, then slowly turned toward me. "It would hardly be a fair fight," he said, and his voice carried an odd timbre. "You are fresh and have not suffered like a fool for the wrath of the grape the night before."  
  
"I will give you time, and every help I can," I told him, spreading my hands. "If you are affrighted to attempt ..."  
  
That did it, as I knew it would. He face darkened with anger. "Fine. Give me time to eat and drink and to empty my body. Then I will put you back into your place, barbarian."  
  
I merely smiled calmly. I had him now. "As you say, axe brother," I said, handing him the pouch with the cheese and fruit.  
  
Making myself comfortable on the grass, I blanked my mind and waited for Obiareus to prepare for our 'battle.' I'm not certain now what I was thinking other than the boy needed taking down a peg or two, and this was a sure way to do it. He truly was a good fighter, I had seen that on the sands. And he truly did need more work.  
  
And then there was this odd attraction I had to him. I sighed and tried, once again, to empty my mind.  
  
He moved carefully about our makeshift camp, eating and drinking. He stepped to a convenient tree and I heard him sigh as he watered it for a good, long time. Then he began a series of stretches, probably in the hopes of purging the rest of the pain from his body as much to limber up. I had already done my morning exercise and felt ready for our confrontation, so I merely waited for him.  
  
Finally, he approached, and by the way he blocked the sun, I could tell he was looming over me. "Well, barbarian?" he said, and thunked his staff in the ground by my knee.  
  
"Are you ready?" I asked him, not opening my eyes.  
  
"Yes, I am ready," he said, and I smiled inside to hear the frustration and condescension in his voice.  
  
"Then here is your first lesson," I told him, pitching my voice as quietly as I could. "Never trust your opponent."  
  
Almost before I finished speaking, I moved, sweeping my legs out and catching his, tumbling him to the ground. He fell with a cry, and, to his credit, rolled immediately into a crouch. But he had lost his staff, which made him vulnerable.  
  
I rolled myself over and leapt to my feet, snatching up my staff as I did so. "And here is your second; you must always expect the unexpected," I said, using the butt of my staff to roll his towards him.  
  
"That is ridiculous," he said, slowly rising from his crouch as he picked up his staff. His eyes were wary, and I liked that far better than the disdain they carried before. "How can you possibly expect something that is unexpected?"  
  
"Ah," I said, lifting one eyebrow, "I expected you would say that." I immediately lashed out with my staff, aiming for his head. He countered it -- barely -- but did so over-strong, so that when I let him push it away, he was not balanced properly for my next move, which was to rebound to him on the other side.  
  
My staff missed him by a finger's length as he danced away. The wariness had turned to concern and not a little anger. Good. I could use that. I continued to press him, not letting up in my furious attack. He backed away from me, countering my moves well, but with rising passion. "Your third lesson, then," I said, as mildly as I could, "is that a fight for your life is never a fair fight."  
  
As I spoke, I stepped inside his guard and, using my staff to block his on the right, I shoved my left elbow deeply into his mid-section. He woofed-out air and doubled over, so I swept his feet out from under him again so that he crashed down on his back. Making sure I was out of the range of his feet, I pressed my staff on his throat. "And your fourth lesson, is never assume there are no new tricks for you to learn."  
  
He glared at me, and I smiled. "Do you yield?" I asked him pleasantly.  
  
"No!" he shouted, rolling away and jumping to his feet with gratifying swiftness. I would have been disappointed had the battle been over so quickly.  
  
I allowed him to press me back then, but he had lost his temper and so had lost all. His moves were distressingly predictable and therefore easy to counter. However, he was swift and I was losing my energy rapidly -- he was half my age, after all. It would not do to show weariness to him, yet. So, I looked into his snarling face and said, as evenly as I could, "Your fifth -- and most important -- lesson is, never lose your temper in a battle."  
  
Using a maneuver I had learned many years ago, I shortened my grip on my staff and twirled it, striking his staff out of his hands and, with one lunging, twisting move, brought him to his knees. I stood behind him, my knee pressed into his back, and my staff under his chin, threatening to cut off his air supply. He was panting and shaking -- whether from rage or in reaction, I hardly knew.  
  
"Do you yield, Obiareus?" I asked him, increasing the pressure very slightly.  
  
I felt him tense to move and increased the pressure again. "You are well and truly trapped, you know," I said. "I've never seen anyone able to break out of this hold. I believe that discretion is the better part of you at the moment."  
  
He finally slumped and I felt the fight go out of him in a rush. "I yield," he whispered, and I swallowed at the pain in his voice.  
  
In a swift movement, I released him and came around to face him, at a safe distance. It would be like him to learn my lessons quickly and well, but it seemed he had no fight left in him at all. I leaned on my staff and let my fatigue show, then, and he looked up at me.  
  
"Teach me," he said quietly.  
  
I smiled at him as I regained my breath. "It would be my honor," I replied, bowing my head.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
It would be his honor? _My_ honor was crushed, my pride aching worse than my poor, befuddled head had been. He'd not only bested me, but he'd done it soundly, effortlessly, and using my own techniques against me, while berating my lack of skill. It was a warrior's nightmare. My pride made me want to spit that the effects of the drink were still on me, but then I might have learned that he had hobbled himself in some way for my benefit. No, I said nothing. I sat in the grass, watching him warily. His breath labored, though by now I wondered if it was a ruse to convince me he was fatigued. When he moved over me, I tensed.  
  
"Up," he said firmly, tapping my leg with his staff. "You have a good deal to learn, my young Kleinos, and though you have slept away the morning, there is yet the day."  
  
Scowling, I tucked my legs close to me and rose, burying the wound I felt at having been so completely defeated and ignoring his proffered assistance to rise.  
  
Kaigan shook his head and sighed, and I felt if I saw him do that yet once more, I would scream. "You have too much pride, Obiareus. I am surprised the Jheudi way teaches nothing of the importance of humility."  
  
"Humility has no value in battle," I muttered, taking up my staff and resolving myself never to go unarmed again in his presence. "One does not best one's enemy by being meek. Look me in the eye and tell me you beat me by thinking how worthless you are."  
  
He set his staff into the dirt and held it away from him somewhat. "I never once had a thought to being worthless. But I was ever aware that you are quick, strong, and good with a staff -- something you, in your arrogance, forgot about me. If you allow the battle to become personal, then your anger will defeat you itself -- as you have learned. To your enemies, you are another body to be driven through -- nothing more." He regarded me critically. "Were I an assassin after the king, I would have snapped your n--"  
  
"Ai, old man, but you prattle on," I cut him off. "If you mean to teach me, then _teach_ me, do not sing me lullabies of things I already know."  
  
Kaigan's eyes smiled briefly before his staff flashed out, catching the backs of my ankles and sweeping me to the ground. I landed hard on my back, letting out a scream of frustration.  
  
"Inanna lend me your cleverness," he sighed, shouldering a pack and walking away, "for certainly a son of Kreta has nothing to learn from a barbarian from behind the sun." He paused and looked over his shoulder at me. "For all your vain beauty and skill, my Kleinos, you _will_ have to get off your hindside. I am not enamored of you enough to carry you south." And he turned away again and resumed walking.  
  
Growling, I flung myself to my feet and took up my pack and my himation. Truly this looked to be the longest two months of my life.

* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
Well, it was certainly not the most auspicious of beginnings, but it was a beginning nonetheless.  
  
We headed out immediately, and I set a steady pace, despite his obvious reluctance. The place I headed for was indeed a day's march into the hills south of Knossos, and since we were starting late in the morning, I wished to get there before darkness fell. Plus, we needed to find our dinner on the way.  
  
Using my staff as a walking stick, I found the trail and led the way into the foothills. The weather was fine and hot -- again -- and I found myself laughing over the thought that it _was_ hot. Hot was the desert of Assyria, hot was the reed-beds by the great river of Aegypt. This was _not_ hot.  
  
I heard Obiareus snort at my laughter, and I half turned to him, offering an explanation. "I was recalling the endless wastes of sand where I was whelped," I explained. "It seems hot here to me now, but only because I have been away from there so long. Now, that is truly hot. It is the place where Inanna rules, and where the lion and the scorpion stalk. This is paradise by comparison."  
  
"You've said that name before," I heard from behind me, sounding grudging, and I glanced back in surprise. "Whom do you speak of?"  
  
"Surely you know of Inanna?" I said, and, not truly looking at me, he shook his head. "She is also called Ishtar and Astarte," I supplied helpfully, but it still earned me a blank look. Well, I could change that. "She is my patron goddess. I was pledged to her service when I was not much older than you." I touched the place on my breast where her lion raged. "This is her mark. She is a demanding slut, but in all fairness, she provides what I truly need if not what I want." I saddened at the thought of my beautiful, lost Siobhan.  
  
Obiareus had stopped and was gaping at me. "What?" I asked, pausing and turning. He began walking again, but a frown marred his beautiful features. I thought back over my words and realized he may have thought me disrespectful to the goddess. "Inanna is the goddess of love and war -- I'm sure you'll agree a most delightful combination," I said dryly. "The light-bringer, mother of all things, she is very close to those of us born of the desert. I was born in the great city of Akkad," I added, twisting my mouth at the thought of what Akkad had become since my birth.  
  
"I do not know where that is," Obiareus said behind me.  
  
Ignoring his tone -- which had been condescending to say the least -- I proceeded to enlighten him. "Akkad is all that is now left of Gilgamesh's great land," I began, knowing stories would help eat up the miles. "But I was raised in Nineveh, in Babylon, and it is there I remember best. It was there that I was pledged to Inanna to serve as guardian of her temple."  
  
"After the harvest, Inanna goes through the seven gates to the vast underworld, where souls go after death," I said, letting my feet lead my body while my mouth led my heart. "When she enters the underworld, she must leave all her worldly attire behind, so that her life is reduced to naught -- she comes naked, you see, without her jewels or raiment, which defines her purity. Her fierce sister, Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld, greets her and they see to the death rites of the sacred bull, Gugalanna. I will show you him tonight when the stars kindle -- I mean to say, if you have an interest ..." I didn't want to look behind me lest I see his disdain in my story, so I merely continued.  
  
"For two years, I was the sacrificial king Dumuzi in the mid-winter rites," I told him, grinning to hear the pride in my voice. "When Inanna returns from the underworld, she is always accompanied by demons who demand a mortal in sacrifice. But she always relents and returns the sacrifice to life. It was a great honor to be chosen as her husband and sacrifice. I was pledged to her temple for many years before ... well, before we left on campaign ..."  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He fell blessedly silent for a while, but then began to speak again. For some reason, he had begun to talk of Inanna, this goddess of his -- of some descent into the underworld, of the stripping of her jewels, of flies and blessings -- all nonsense.  
  
"How do you come to know so much about one who dwells in the sky?" I asked him. "And you speak to her as though she can hear you."  
  
Kaigan chuckled. "She can."  
  
It was said with such certainty that it puzzled me further. I shook my head. "My mother's house is filled with small dedications to the Snake Goddess, but we certainly do not _speak_ to her. That is for the king and the priestesses."  
  
He smiled, but did not turn his face to me. "If you spoke to the ones who dwell in the sky, you would know more about them."  
  
It made no sense to me, but I fell silent, as did he. The idea that he could speak to Inanna, the idea that I could speak to Minos, was frightening to me. After a long while, I said quietly, "I am only a Jheudi."  
  
"All the more reason to know the powers that control your fate." Kaigan's staff made rhythmic chuffing noises in the dirt path as he walked. "The gods who rule the earth and sky are wide and varied in the world, and sometimes they battle. If you do not know them, you will not know to stay out of their way." He sounded amused. Ai, but I tired of him sounding amused at me, and it was only half a day.  
  
"No one controls my fate," I muttered, slinging my himation further up upon my shoulder. "I am a warrior. My purpose is to fight for my king, heal my axe-brothers, and die. That is my lot."  
  
He laughed out loud. "You truly do learn nothing." Slapping his large hand on my shoulder, he shook his head yet once more at me. "You will be as Inanna when you reach the underworld, stripped naked and hanging from the wall, if you do not open your ears."  
  
I tired of giving him reasons to laugh at me. Every time he opened his mouth to smile, I cringed inside, stinging under the barbs of his humor.  
  
"I understand that you brought me into the wilds to humiliate me," I muttered tightly, "but I also understood you brought me here to teach me to fight. I would prefer that you chide me with your staff." So saying, I adjusted my pack on my shoulder and strode more quickly so that he would not see, yet again, how he wounded me. **KAIGAN:**  
  
The sun was nearly gone as we stood at the entrance to our destination. I smiled in satisfaction, for the place had not changed since I first discovered it. It was a deep canyon, with a lovely wild stream running through it. The stream evidently originated somewhere in the mountains and had worn away the canyon over the years; it washed down to one end of the canyon in a small waterfall that I remembered as being cold and fresh tasting. There were still caves off the valley floor, not yet filled by the earth tremors that were common in Kreta. While some of the caves were obviously occupied, the one I remembered was not. And the hot spring was still there and still inviting.  
  
In all, the destination was much preferable to the journey, with Obiareus' petulance dogging my every step. Inanna! For a warrior, the boy could be such a child!  
  
Ah, but perhaps there lie the problem. He is not much more than a boy, for all he is years older than I was when I was branded in service of the king at Nineveh. The people of this island coddled their young much more than my people had, I deem, and I think it might have been worse for Obiareus, since he appeared to be an only child of selfish, high-status parents. I knew of this Palaemon, this politician who had insinuated himself into Obia's family -- that would be enough to drive any man's son to drink, in my estimation.  
  
We carried a brace of rabbits with us, and I made haste to kindle a fire with which to cook them. Obiareus had proved himself very useful with a sling, and once I pointed them out -- by killing one with a fortunate axe-throw -- he followed my lead with a few well-placed rocks and now we had enough for dinner. I was hungry; my thanks to the spirits of the rabbits were perfunctory at best, and Siobhan would have shaken her finger at me had she known. But it was a long, tiring walk to my canyon.  
  
We ate our dinner of roasted rabbit in quiet, as I watched the stars emerge from their hiding places in the blue vault of heaven. There was just enough light left for me to show Obiareus the lay of the land -- the stream, waterfall, and hot spring, and the cave I chose for us to sleep in. He took it all in with disinterest, and I suppressed my irritation by reminding myself -- he was born of Kreta. Its wonder and beauty were commonplace to him.  
  
I carried fire into our cave and then buried the one outside. We would spread our pallets here, on the sandy floor of the cave, and hopefully get a good night's sleep before beginning the lessons again on the morrow.  
  
Watching Obiareus' sullen movements, though, I realized I had my doubts of the wisdom of my plan.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
We reached a suitable place to sleep well after nightfall. Kaigan showed me the spring and the valley below us, then led us a little way into a cave to bed down. I might have found it beautiful had I not been so frustrated with the whole endeavor. Immediately I began to set out my pallet, far away from where he had dropped his pack.  
  
"If you are quite finished lecturing me, I intend to sleep properly. Perhaps tomorrow you may take further joy in humiliating me again; for now, I will allow it no further."  
  
Kaigan snorted at me, beginning to lay out his own himation as a sleeping pallet. "Even in the unnecessary explanation of Philetor and Kleinos that Xanthus plied me with, he never mentioned that the Kleinos had to _allow_ anything at all. Certainly he had the wrong of it in suggesting you would submit yourself to this."  
  
I froze, bent over my bed, then straightened, staring at his crouched form, turned away from me and half-silhouetted in the moonlight against the opening of the cave. "Oh," I said quietly. "I see."  
  
He turned his head and stared at me. "Do you, now? That would be the first time today, then." And he resumed straightening his folded himation on the ground.  
  
Silently, I took my bedding up and moved close to him, spreading my own himation next to his. "I understand now why you have brought me here," I told him. "You frustrate yourself needlessly."  
  
His puzzled look gave me pause. "Now _you_ speak in mysteries, Obiareus."  
  
I unpinned my chiton and removed my belt, baring myself. "It is clear that you kidnapped me for no other reason." I knelt on my pallet and swallowed, understanding now why he'd stared so long, so many times. "Have me; I will not fight you. Be quick. We must yet sleep if you are to ... 'teach' me further on the morrow."  
  
I pillowed my forehead against my arms and closed my eyes. There was a sound of rustling cloth, a sigh of breath, and then -- nothing. I waited a moment for him to rummage in a pack for oil, or move behind me, but after a while I could stand it no longer and raised my head.  
  
Kaigan lay on his pallet, back turned to me, appearing for all the world to be asleep. I blinked at him, then, slowly, began to dress myself again, hot with shame.  
  
"You wound me," his voice rumbled softly through the cave, "to assume I would be so callous -- and to think that a man 'from the other side of the sun' is less civilized than you."  
  
Incredulous words welled in my throat and stuck there. I could not help but rise, take up my mantle, and move to the other side of the cave again. After I'd settled, I pulled half of my himation-pallet over me and frowned into the darkness, stung yet again. With a strange, dawning ache, I realized I did not know which was worse -- that I allowed him to hurt me, or that I seemed to have hurt him in return.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
Damn the boy. Damn the boy and damn his silly pride, his stupid misunderstandings. Inanna, were you to manifest yourself before me this instant in all your glory, I would cheerfully wring your lovely neck.  
  
I don't know which is worse, to have been offered that lovely ass as a sacrificial lamb or to know it was available to me and know further that I had to turn it down! Yes, Inanna, yes, I can admit it to myself now, I want him. He's beautiful, and he's strong and willful and damn you, lioness of the desert, I will leave your service if you do not let me be!  
  
Because he is hurt as well. It took me only a little thought to get past his petulance and his pride to realize that something gnawed at him -- especially after his last display. Those were not the actions of a whole, soul-healthy man. Perhaps it is his mother's bending over to that serpent Palaemon. Perhaps it is something else. Stars above, I didn't want to care! I knew this would be a mistake.  
  
This should have been easy. Take a young warrior out to the wilds and live with him for two months. Two turnings of the moon. Teach him, learn from him. I could have taught him as I was taught, I could have shown him the things I learned in Aegypt, or in Gaul. We would have had a pleasant time. But now ...  
  
Now, I hear his hitching breaths on the other side of the cave from me, and I know he is as without sleep as I am. Now, I want nothing more than to take him into my arms and soothe his wounds. Damn you, Inanna. I told you I would love no more after Siobhan -- I swore an oath! Why did you have to bring this golden warrior into my life? I will _not_ care for him, Inanna. I will _not_.  
  
Sometime during my soundless rantings, she must have grown weary of me and put me to sleep. The next thing I knew, there was sunlight slanting into the door of the cave, which faced east. I remained on my back and studied the low ceiling of the cavern and wondered what this day would bring. It did nothing to wonder, however, so finally I sighed quietly and rose. Obia was curled up on his pallet, looking very young and very loveable. I longed to take him into my arms, and take what he had offered the night before.  
  
No. I would not do that. He would not make me into his rapist.  
  
Soundlessly, I left the cave and walked the few short steps to the stream. I filled the skins up again and splashed water on my face, for it had been a short night for me. I stood and stretched, then removed my chiton and breechclout, not wanting to have anything between me and the beautiful day it was becoming. We still had some good fruit and cheese and half a loaf of bread left to break our fast, and already I could hear rabbits rustling through the undergrowth on the other side of the stream. We would have meat a-plenty between my axe and Obiareus' sling.  
  
Something made me turn and I realized the object of my thoughts had risen. He was standing at the door of our cave home and staring at me, his face unreadable in the sunlight. We stared at each other wordlessly for a time before being startled by a hawk bringing down a pigeon, almost right in front of us. The hawk obviously hadn't seen us, for he was startled almost out of his mind when he noticed us standing near his kill.  
  
I chuckled at the bird's antics and that seemed to break the spell of silence we were under. With a bare nod of his head, Obiareus stalked past me to the stream, where he crouched and splashed water on himself. He had obviously not gotten past his hurt of the night before, and I wondered what I could do to help him. While I thought, I went to a convenient tree and relieved myself.  
  
We broke fast together in silence ... neither one of us had spoken a word, which, when I realized it, was rather odd. Finally, I rose, and dressed again, fastening only one of the fibulae in deference to the heat. Despite my lack of sleep, I felt unaccountably refreshed. Being away from the town and all its distractions, smells and noises relaxed me, and I realized with a start that regardless of how it turned out with Obiareus and me, I needed this. I should have come here long before.  
  
I stretched and moved my ancient body into some gentler motions to warm up, while Obiareus watched me, his eyes hooded. Finally, I turned to him with a smile. "Are you ready for another lesson then, my Kleinos?"  
  
In such a good mood as I was, I was hardly prepared for him to leap to his feet with a snarl. "I believe I told you that title did not apply to me, barbarian."  
  
Oh, Inanna. So we were back to that. Inclining my head and sighing, I said, "As you wish. I apologize. I was merely ..."  
  
"I have had enough." Using his staff as a lever, he rose and tossed his himation over his shoulder. "I am returning to Knossos. You may do as you wish."  
  
Shocked as I was at his discourtesy, it took me a few moments to gather my wits. When they returned to me, I realized how angry I was at his mien. "We had an agreement, or so I thought," I said, softly.  
  
"I was in my cups," he replied, his back to me. "You took unfair advantage."  
  
"I did not," I said, loudly, as I rose to my feet. "I took no advantage of you at all yesterday -- or yestereve, for that matter, no matter how crudely presented!" I should not answer heat for heat, but the boy was causing me to boil over. We now stood, separated by a greensward and many angry words. "I should have expected it," I finally said, when he began walking away from me again. "You are not more than a spoiled, vain puppy, a lone child raised by selfish parents. You do as you wish, Obiareus. Far be it for me to change the course of your history."  
  
That made him turn, and his face was suffused with anger. "You know _naught_ of me, barbarian," he growled. "My brother was one of the finest Jheudi ever--"  
  
"Then he should have taught you better how to treat your elders!" I replied with heat. I hadn't known Obiareus had a brother -- where was he?  
  
With a cry of inarticulate rage, Obiareus raised his staff and attacked me.  
  


* * *

**OBIAREUS:**  
  
I saw not that I was overtired after a mostly-sleepless night and a dream -- a strange, unfathomable dream I could not imagine deciphering. I saw not that I still bore the sting of the night's humiliation. Ai, the night's _and_ the day's. I did not even bother to consider that Kaigan truly knew nothing of me, or of Heiro. I only heard the barb he slung at the man who should still have lived to teach me _anything,_ and it drove me to white-blind fury. I flew at Kaigan, enraged, and had he not rolled from under my heavily-swung staff and armed himself to block me, I would have sought to knock his head clean off, or pound it into the rocks.  
  
After what I had suffered at his hand -- and mouth -- I could scarcely stand the idea of a mention of my brother coming from this pompous, insensitive boor before me. My hands worked my staff of their own volition as I drove Kaigan immediately to the defensive, my anger pressing me forward where my embarrassment had cost me the battle the day before.  
  
"Never -- speak -- of him," I panted, low, as my staff struck his over and over. I wanted to say more, but my desire to defeat him was stronger. Sensing this, he levered himself forward and tried, as he had the day before, to step inside my guard. Immediately I brought my staff up in both fists and caught him hard under the chin, rocking him back, stunned.  
  
"Good," he breathed as he came at me again, and my anger exploded again. He sought to turn this into another lesson, but he would not have it from me. _I_ sought to knock him out of his senses.  
  
But he is strong and quick, and where I have reflexes and the motion of the young, he has size and sheer cunning of decades of battle and cultures I have no way of knowing. We fought long and hard this time, for even had he pinned me as he did the day before, I would have let him break my back in half before I yielded.  
  
Finally our staves crossed once more, and, breathing hard, he said quietly, "You have fought me to a standstill, Obiareus. I am pleased and proud." His voice was almost tender and his eyes compassionate, and, confused and losing my tight hold on my anger, I stared back at him. I wanted to shove him off me, tell him I cared nothing for his pleasure and pride, but he had unknotted me, and I knew it was not so. Even as I continued to watch him warily, he relaxed his stance somewhat, his staff still against mine but no longer pressing forward. "Now take your rest and tell me: what happened to your brother that gives you such pain, Kleinos?"  
  
The old tightness I had known for ages had returned to my chest at the mention of my brother. Loosing a frustrated noise, I shoved at Kaigan's staff enough to get him away from me, then dropped my own weapon in the grass. Exhausted, I dropped to my knees, facing the end of the valley, away from Kaigan.  
  
I may never know what made me drop those words on the ground that day. I was faintly horrified even as I spoke, knowing I only gave him more to embarrass me with later. Still, the words left me as quickly as they came to me. Part of me knew even then that I was safe, much though I would rebel against the thought later.  
  
"I was seven years old. Palaemon had only taken power a moon or two before, and already he was as poisonous as any scorpion. He had blackmailed another Senator into quitting his station. He had wormed into several beds -- two wedded Senators and I believe there was even a scandal involving one of the Priestesses -- I cannot remember. I was not much for politics back in those days." I laughed harshly, then went on, never turning, only staring at the broken sage in the ground in front of me. "It was not long before he was in our household like a brother, and ai, my mother adored him. My true brother, Heiro, was not so kind to him, sensing somehow that Palaemon was as malicious as he appeared to be benevolent."  
  
Before I even realized it, I sank to my heels and lost myself in memories of Heiro.  
  
"My brother was so sharp-witted. Nothing escaped him, and he loved me so protectively. He was ten years my senior and in between his birth and mine he had comforted my mother through another child lost before it was born -- a sister. He might have been ready to go into the Senate at seventeen, had he been so inclined, but he was such a good fighter he took to the Jheudi. Ai, Kaigan, Heiro was an amazing fighter. _He_ would have bested you three times by now, and been kindly while he did it." I struggled against my throat's tightness and ache, then succumbed to it, falling silent for a while until the words I needed to say could be loosed again. "I have never been -- could never be -- the man that my brother was. Even your Inanna would have loved him."  
  
I barely felt the tears that began sliding down my cheeks. "I have tried," I hitched out quietly before steadying my voice, "to be like him, to have his forgiveness and wisdom. Gods know my mother wants me to. I have tried to consider being a perioikos to some worthy Jheudi, but I cannot. I cannot give my heart, I cannot -- not even Hekate can claim me. Too much has been taken from me. I will not risk losing more."  
  
I fell silent then, my hands balled into fists and my head bowed. The tears flowed freely, though gods know I fought against the noises that such tears produced. I certainly did not wish him to know that I cried like a babe for a man dead twelve years. Nearly anyone would have grown impatient with me and slapped me, were I still a child. My mother would have cupped my cheek, pressed cool water to it, and told me to go and play and pretend that it had never happened, which was somehow worse.  
  
Somehow I managed to bring myself under control. I waved my hand dismissively. "Ai, gods. Pay me no mind; I slept badly." It was enough for me, if not him, and I fell silent again.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
My poor, wounded Kleinos. Such a terrible thing to have happened to one so young. Yes, indeed something did eat at his soul, just as I had suspected.  
  
I felt that any attempt at comfort now would not be welcome, so I remained crouched on one side of our greensward while he remained on his knees on the other. I chose not to notice his quiet sobs as he remembered his brother and remembered his pain. He would not have appreciated my acknowledgement of his weakness, no matter that I did not see it as such.  
  
Pain is pain, and Inanna, you of all others know that we poor mortals cannot wallow in it forever -- no matter that we might wish to. Finally, the storm passed, leaving him drained and slumped over his staff. The sun was rising toward mid-day by then, another fine, hot day, and the sound of the waterfall drew me.  
  
When he finally got himself under control, he rose and tried to dismiss his feelings with harsh words: "Ai, gods. Pay me no mind; I slept badly," before going to rummage through our stores. I could tell he was trying to keep busy to avoid thinking more on what he had spoken of. Rising, I gently approached him, touching him lightly, fleetingly. "Come with me to bathe, Obiareus," I said softly. "It is a hot day, and we have worked up a sweat with our sparring." I also chose not to notice his initial murderous intent. "Many things look better to us when our bodies are clean."  
  
He would not look at me, but his shoulders slumped. "Yes, that is probably a good idea," he mumbled, then rose. I stood behind him and carefully didn't touch him ... I could tell he wasn't ready for that yet.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He directed me around the caves, through the trees, to a place I had never been to. It caused me a strange pang to know one who understood my own isle better than I did. He was kind and gentle then, completely unlike the insufferable "teacher" I had had the day before. Still, I went along. There was nothing else for me to do out here in the wilds, and having opened up my heart so soon before, I found I was too tired to do other than agree with him. I wondered, though, why he would not come near me.  
  
The spring was attractive, set into the valley behind a wall of trees and rock, all greens and foaming water. Kaigan for some reason felt a need to treat me with a kind of deference I'd never seen of him before, with me or anyone. He led me solicitously down to the bank of the spring, then, after peeling out of his chiton and breechclout, offered me his hand as he stepped down into the water. Eyeing him, I kept my limbs to myself, making my own way down into the warm pool in due course.  
  
"Is there more you wish to talk about?" he asked me, and I fairly recoiled from his words as I felt my way along the smooth bottom of the spring.  
  
"No, I do not wish to speak of it any further," I almost snapped. "I have had done with speaking of it. I should have left by now." But I knew as well as he did that I was making no move to leave the water, and no move to leave this valley he had selected for our temporary home.  
  
There was something about him that I found unbearably intriguing, this barbarian. He had known, somehow, how to reach me, to tame the anger that had unleashed itself in my brother's name. Somehow, Kaigan understood my heart enough to tolerate me that long, and I puzzled at that. Now he was kind and somehow easy to be with, and I found myself reconsidering my desire to run back to Knossos.  
  
Considering this strange turn, I glanced at my would-be Philetor. He was, indeed, marked all over, with his various inkings and brands all over his back and torso -- and perhaps lower, though by the time I thought to look, he was half up to his chest in water. He was strange, exotic, and beautiful in a way that made me reluctantly dizzy to consider. It was not only that, however, that drew my eye and my thoughts. It was more, and yet nothing, if I allowed myself to think on it.  
  
But all of the king's warriors were beautiful in their way, and I had dallied with a few of them and set them away from me again. I had been readying myself to do the same to Xanthus, surely. This was nothing. It had to be nothing. What I had said to Xanthus was true -- I could not be kept: I would not allow myself to be. It mattered little how intriguing my barbarian was, nor how easily he drew my darkest secrets from me. I would not bear the pain of losing another, so I had long ago resolved myself simply that I would not care. The people in my life had betrayed everything I knew of love, and Palaemon was even now betraying the passion of my mother and the devotion of her son, and that was unforgivable. The gods only know why he wanted my mother so, unless it was because as a Senator, he was expected to be married -- just as a Jheudi is expected to have a perioikos. Ai, if she married him, she was lost to me!  
  
The very idea had me wading away from Kaigan in impatience, splashing water over my face and chest and trying to clear the old tears from my eyes once more.  
  
"You did not tell me what happened to Heiro," Kaigan said carefully, rinsing himself as well, splashing water into his hair and over his face. I glanced at him, then away quickly as he moved toward the fall.  
  
"Palaemon killed him," I said shortly, and at Kaigan's gasp, I waved him down. "I cannot prove it. Ai, I cannot even say how I know it. But I get a sense of him ... he was always a monster, and my brother had witnessed an event ... well." I left the subject to die, bending my knees and sinking into the water up to my shoulders before making my way to the cool falls as well.  
  
"Please," Kaigan requested. "Tell me what happened."  
  
I frowned. His interest was disarming, and before I could stop myself, I heard my own voice confessing the events of the day that had ended in my brother's death almost without my consent.  
  
"He was with the goats. He ascended a small knoll back behind -- but I suppose you have not seen my yards. At any rate, he was within his own yardage and saw Palaemon discussing something ... questionable with another man." I paused as I remembered my brother's words, though I could not bring myself to repeat them. "Palaemon was in the process of slowly killing the king, Kaigan. He was placing small amounts of tincture of poppy into our own king's wine, waiting for him to fall ill and die so that the king's son, Anakreon -- another plot of Palaemon's, I was later to learn -- would succeed the throne."  
  
I glanced at Kaigan, needing to know whether he believed me or no. His expression was stunned even as he stood in the loose fall of water, his long, silvering hair pressed flat to his head and his beard dripping.  
  
"The king is yet alive," he said carefully, and I could tell he was yet treating me with the same gentleness of one who is hearing of the shaky visions of fever or grief.  
  
"Of course he is," I snapped, bending suddenly and dipping my head into the water, then slinging my hair, heavy and wet, over my back. "As soon as Palaemon was discovered, he stopped his slow poisoning, for he could never know if my brother spoke of his discovery -- ah but that is still not _telling_ you what happened, is it?"  
  
Kaigan remained silent, waiting for me to finish out my tale.  
  
"My brother witnessed the conversation," I continued, "in which Palaemon detailed his methods and his motives. Soon after ... ." I swallowed hard, struggling not to return to the place that sent me into pained tears every time. "I went out into the goat yard -- my very own goat yard, you understand -- and I found him with a dagger buried in his heart much like the one that Palaemon carried." Suddenly finding the calm center that enabled me to speak coldly of the death of my brother, I met Kaigan's stunned gaze. "You may perhaps recognize the design. It was not long after this that all of the Senators began to carry similar daggers, inset with mother of pearl ... ?"  
  
He nodded mutely, understanding.  
  
I merely shrugged. "That is the way of it. I can prove nothing, though even then it seemed to me that Palaemon flaunted my brother's murder before the entirety of Knossos. I was a child. My mother was too much in the man's favor to bother with proving my words -- but I swear to you -- I swear, it was him --" In spite of my best efforts, my voice broke.  
  
"I am sorry," Kaigan said softly, stepping out of the spray and reaching for my shoulder to comfort me. "I should not have pressed. If you like, I will --"  
  
"Stop," I said sharply, jerking away from him. "You treat me as though I have had more pain than anyone else in the world. Coddling me is worse than if you ask me pointed questions. If I wanted pampering, I would return to my mother's house." I swept my hair back from my face and made to move out of the water.  
  
"But I know that you have not suffered more, only differently," he corrected softly. I turned to stare at him, waiting for the end of his point, as it would seem I was learning to do.  
  
"And how would you know this?"  
  
"Because I have lost someone dear to me as well." He lowered his gaze to the water. "I have not lost a brother, but I daresay you have not lost a wife and child."  
  
For reasons I could not discern, Kaigan once more took the wind completely from my sails. "And you have?" I asked, trying to sound sharp, and failing.  
  
"Yes," he told me, meeting my eyes. "Her name was Siobhan."  
  
 **KAIGAN:**  
  
He made me break my oath, the oath I took to myself never to speak her name aloud again. Never to look upon anyone else again with the kind of love and desire I felt for her. He made me break my oath.  
  
At least ... I believe it was he who did it.  
  
"The cedars of Gubla are large, but larger still are the great trees that live in the northern land, north of Iberia, in a land called Gaul," I told him, wondering at myself, wondering why my voice sounded so normal to my ears. "I left the army after our campaign against the Aegyptians failed, and desired to travel. I had never seen such an expanse of water like the sea, and when I was offered a place in crew aboard a Phoenician ship, I took it, and learned the ways of water. They are different than the ways of sand. Different, and yet strangely the same."  
  
I took a seat on a convenient rock in the sun, and studied the glittering facets of the water. "This was while the Hyksos were being driven from Aegypt, you realize, and the Phoenicians were in decline. They couldn't land on the southern shores of the sea for fear of being caught in the war, so they concentrated on the northern shores, which are far different -- wild and without civilization. There are trees in the land north of Iberia that are taller than giants, Obiareus, and whole tracts of land that rarely see sunlight for the canopy of leaves that cover them." I closed my eyes, letting my body remember the peace and silence of those places. "The Phoenicians and others make coin by felling and transporting those giants. Among other things." The thought of slavery never bothered me until I married, Inanna.  
  
"I left my ship because I wanted to further explore those massive giants -- against the wishes of my captain, who told me my wanderlust would get me into trouble. He was both right and wrong ..." I found myself grinning wryly, and wondered that I could contemplate my heartbreak thusly. "Trouble -- in the form of a little red-haired girl -- found me before I could seek it out. Her name was Siobhan, and she took me back to her tribe and they made me their own."  
  
It was a moment before I could continue, and I marveled that he refrained from interrupting me. "Their language is both crude and beautiful, and they celebrated life in ways that I found astonishing. And eventually, their chieftain saw that I belonged with Siobhan, his daughter, and we were married, according to their traditions." I swallowed against the lump in my throat. "She was the sun and the moon and the stars, Obiareus. Her laughter could charm birds from their nest. I loved her like I have never loved before ..." And never would again, I usually continued. But I didn't say it this time. Why?  
  
"We had only been married for two summers when she grew heavy with child. She had taught me so much of their healing ways, and the elders of the tribe had taught me even more, and I felt that there was nothing beyond me. I knew which herbs to give to ease pain and cure ills, even in a pregnant woman, so I was confident our son would be born healthy and whole."  
  
Oh, Inanna. My arrogance knew no bounds.  
  
I must have murmured that aloud, because I saw Obiareus frown in confusion and look at me askance. Forcing myself, I continued. "Then, a pox visited the tribe, I know not from where. Those afflicted developed tiny red spots that filled with pus and burst, itching horribly. Siobhan was gravid, due to give birth, and her temperature ... I could not get her fever to abate, no matter that I gave her the willow bark and bathed her with cool cloths ..." I clenched my fists and closed my eyes against the memory of her pain-filled eyes looking hopefully into mine. "Nothing I did, no herb learned from the north or the southern climes would help. She went into labor and died, even as our son died with her, his tiny face red and perfect."  
  
"She was the only one of the tribe to die," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Many of the children became sick and then became whole again. I never even itched once." I felt the tears run hot down my face and marveled anew -- this was the first time I had cried over Siobhan in years. Always before, my pain was so great it prevented tears from coming.  
  
"I helped the tribe then, and the bodies of my wife and son were cared for after their customs. Then I left, and walked south into Iberia, where I found another ship to carry me on." I opened my eyes again and found that Obiareus had stretched out on the grass in the sun near me, and lay with his eyes closed. "Inanna provided for me," I whispered. "She took me back ... but she has never explained to me why Siobhan died in my arms. I confess there were times when I cursed her, but she never held that against me. My goddess knows what is in my heart, even when I -- do not."  
  
Studying my large, capable hands, hands that had killed and healed both, I swallowed before continuing in a murmur. "I took ship again, and sought greater knowledge of healing. Everywhere I went, I was the one revered as healer, and none -- not even in the great houses of Aegypt -- had more knowledge than I held." I shook my head sadly. "All the knowledge, and none of it prevented the death of my beautiful Siobhan. Eventually, I heard of a warrior caste who practiced healing arts that were said to be miraculous. They were called Jheudi." I leaned back on my elbows and closed my eyes, which were still burning with tears.  
  
Oh, Inanna, my lovely one. He made me break my oath. And part of me was ... strangely glad.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
I listened to him as he had done for me, strangely finding ease in my own pain with the sharing of his. His tale was something outside my experience, something I could struggle with for years to fully understand, but that seemed not to matter as we sat in a spot of sunlight, drying ourselves in the open air. I felt a closeness with him that I had never felt with anyone before as I struggled to find words suitable to comfort him. As he spoke of his Siobhan, I discovered how deeply he loved and honored, and before I could even consider where the thought had come from, I knew I wanted to taste that from him. A scant hour had passed between my declaration never to want, and my wanting. I was afraid to allow myself to find the reasons.  
  
Ai, and I had tried so hard to keep my eyes away from his well-marked form as he spoke of his pain, but my damnable curiosity got the better of me. I had seen the knotty bands around the firm muscles of his upper arms, the rampant, roaring lion over his heart, and another band around his left wrist. As he had climbed out of the pool I had noticed the scar placed low on his back, before I had averted my eyes for my own sanity. Between stolen glances, I also noticed the clay-colored symbols encircled in a decorated oval on his right shoulder blade, but that was the side of his chiton that he fastened, more often than not. I wondered briefly why he covered it so.  
  
Yes, he was truly beautiful, but what made me ache inside so strangely was not looking at his body or his skin. It was the soft tenderness in his voice as he spoke of his Siobhan and the child he had lost. It was the affection that he displayed when he spoke of his so-called whore goddess. It was even the wisdom he showed me, and the forgiveness in him after I had treated him so poorly. After a long while, I had closed my eyes against the sight of him only to find that my mind, left alone with only the sound of his voice, was not calmed, but flighty and quick to drift to subjects I had kept it well away from my entire life.  
  
"Do you sleep?" he asked me after a time, his voice a bare whisper.  
  
"No," I replied, and opened my eyes to lie to him a little. "Your voice soothes me, I find." I wanted to say more, but could find nothing that was not suggestive of things I did not wish to convey.  
  
He had moved close to me -- closer, perhaps, than I should have been comfortable with. "Thank you. I have not told that part of me for ages. It is good to have it out."  
  
"It is the same with me." I raised myself up onto one elbow and looked at him in the sunlight. "I am ... very grateful ... ." I allowed my voice to trail away. He was darker of skin, I think, than I realized, but his eyes were bluer than the sky -- bluer, even, than the oceans. Had I noticed that before? I did not know. All I knew now was that he was moving yet closer to me, slowly, and then I found myself moving in as well. I allowed my eyes to slide closed as -- ai, gods -- our lips met. His were warm and smooth, the beard soft, and he smelled of fresh water and fruit. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, his spell was so complete. Softly his lips moved over mine until they parted, drawing mine open with them. I made a quiet, lost noise as his tongue slipped delicately over my lips, then past them.  
  
Poets have, for ages, described kisses like these. While I had discovered this barbarian to be more of a poet than I could ever be, I found myself dizzied and grateful with his mouth against mine, thinking of stars and the ocean and the beauty I'd seen in him. Afraid the spell would be broken but wishing him closer, I found myself clutching at his shoulders, pulling him to me.  
  
Kaigan broke the kiss slowly, scattering smaller ones over my mouth even as he pulled slightly away. "Ah, gods, I knew you would be as sweet and soft as cream."  
  
I shivered, wondering how long he had been dreaming of this kiss, wondering how it was that I had not been. Now, surely, it would haunt me forever, my barbarian's warm mouth pressed so softly to mine. He studied me, his eyes darting over my face as though to memorize the look of me. He seemed suddenly out of words. I knew for my own part that had he put a dagger to my throat and bade me speak, I could not have.  
  
My barbarian only looked at me a moment longer, then moved closer to me in the grass. I gasped as hot, hard skin met mine, and his answering, pleased groan shot straight to my core. I put my hand to the back of his head and pulled him close again, kissing him. It was no longer a question but a demand -- I could not get enough of him suddenly, as though he would pull back and disappear from me, the way his Siobhan had. The way my brother had.  
  
Even in the middle of my hunger, I heard a voice that could _not_ have been mine rasping out, "No -- stop."  
  
Incredibly, it _was_ my voice. I tore my mouth away from his and turned my face to the side, struggling to control my breathing. I kept my eyes tightly closed, lest I look at him and lose myself again.  
  
Kaigan's voice was hoarse and shaky when he at last replied. "I -- I am sorry. I should not have --"  
  
I shook my head and rolled away from him, taking up my chiton and throwing it uselessly over my shoulder. "The fault is mine. I knew last night that you did not want me, and -- it is wrong of me to take advantage of your pain so. It will not happen again." So saying, I rose to my knees and then my feet, holding my chiton over my arousal as best I could. Ai, I felt -- I felt a fool, truth be known, and my face burned hotly. I fairly fled to the cave where we had slept the night before.  
  
The instant I reached the spot where I had slept, I threw my chiton down, shaking. Ai, he had undone me, I had lost my mind! He had made himself plain the night before -- but perhaps I misunderstood, for his kisses by the spring had been as eager and hungry as mine.  
  
No, when I forced myself to think on it, I knew that I had been foolish the night before, and certainly Kaigan was not interested in taking one who had no interest in himself. _Now_ I wanted, in spite of my own insistence that I would want no one again. And now, as I had come to want, I had flung the object of my desire away from me. I should have gone back to him then, but my pride was yet too great.  
  
Struggling between heart and mind, I went out into the glade and began to move through the exercises that the masters had taught us in formation. Strange things came to me unbidden: his love for his strange Inanna, who seemed so good for him and yet somehow so cruel to him. It was a mystery. I wondered if she had directed him to me, and then I wondered at the reason. My mind drifted from Inanna to Kaigan, who followed her so faithfully though she saw him stung again and again. I did not think I had ever blamed Hekate for my troubles -- but I had never claimed her, either.  
  
I fought to release my pain, and the pain caused by his words. I hurt for him, my would-be Philetor, and could not understand why I would try to take pleasure from him in the middle of his pain, made so fresh to him by mine. Ai, but I _could_ understand -- I wanted him. It was plain.  
  
As I moved my body, my mind began to clear.  
  
Kaigan had, whatever treachery Xanthus had done, chosen me as his Kleinos. Kaigan had come to my home, following the dictates of the tradition, and taken me with all the blessings of my household. That he'd had no knowledge that my household _carried_ no blessings had not been his failing, but that of Xanthus. Now, there was no help for it -- I was to be his pupil, a temporary perioikos, for the next two moons.  
  
But Kaigan was an honorable man, proud and worthy, and I felt I should have known this even before I had ever become drawn to his physical strength and beauty. No, he had treated me with honor, and I must treat him with the same. My status as his Kleinos could not be set aside. Slowly, as I moved, it dawned in my mind and heart that I did not want it to be.  
  
 **KAIGAN:**  
  
It took me long minutes to get myself under control. It had been a long time since I had felt such desire, something you know quite well, Inanna. But I moved too quickly, and I felt terrible -- about moving at all. It was not something I should have done. Obiareus was owed an apology from me.  
  
Once under control of myself again, I dressed and moved to find him, intending on offering that apology. I did not want to drive him away, just as we were realizing ...  
  
Oh, Inanna. No. You would not ... you could not! Damn you ... you had. The realization that I was falling in love with Obiareus hit me like a punch to my gut, and I nearly doubled over, falling to my knees in pain. Why? Please ... please don't do this to me, my oath, my oath, blessed one ...  
  
I cannot bear to lose another one, Inanna.  
  
The tears came hot from my eyes then, as I tried to call up an image of my lovely Siobhan, but instead saw only Obiareus and his beautiful, pale eyes. How ... this is not ... oh, Inanna ...  
  
But my goddess is wise. She sent me calm, and bade me trust her, as I always had. I took a deep breath and tried to release my fear to her, to allow her to lead me where she wished me to go, as she always has done. Some of it left me, but some of it ... I would have to be firm with her. I had sworn an oath and I could not fall in love. Lust was one thing, and, well, I could do that. Had done that, with Penmennefer. I could have a tumble with Obiareus, I could ... I could ...  
  
He was in the glade where we had our fire the night before, exercising. He had not bothered to dress. I watched him from the trees as his muscles rippled and stretched as he posed and used his staff. He was beauty incarnate, and as I watched, I felt myself respond.  
  
No ... it was far too late for me to be firm with myself, or with Inanna. I had already fallen, and so my oath was well and truly smashed.  
  
With a deep breath and an ache in my heart, I joined him at his exercise. He did not react to my presence, but automatically accommodated himself to my being there. We flowed seamlessly from one pose to another, and then into yet another. When we were both sufficiently warm, he turned to me and bowed, his face impassive. "I would appreciate your tutoring me further, Kaigan," he said.  
  
I inclined my head without a word, and, discarding my chiton, I picked up my staff.  
  
As the day aged, we continued our exercise. He was a quick and excellent student, as I knew he would be. I only had to show him a move once before he was copying it, nearly flawlessly, and sometimes improving upon it. We spoke little ... I occasionally corrected his stance or stopped him to demonstrate something, but other than that, the glade only heard our breath.  
  
Finally, the sun was westering, and I realized we needed to stop, to eat. We were drenched in the sweat that comes from good, hard work, and hungry as well. I pulled out my knife and my axe and went to hunt our dinner while Obiareus re-kindled our fire, and with an efficiency that spoke of our comfort with each other, we prepared our dinner and ate, drinking nothing but cold water. I seasoned the rabbits -- thanking them with more sincerity this time -- with some of the herbs growing in the canyon, and Obiareus found some tubers which he roasted on the coals of our fire. It was not a king's feast, but the company made it better than one.  
  
By full dark, our bellies were full, and the stars were shining. There was only a sliver of a moon, thin as a nail, which would set early. I looked into the sky and found the familiar patterns that had been with me all my life, and wondered at this new ache in my chest. Would you take him from me as you had taken Siobhan, Inanna? Or would you take me from him? I was older now, and even though I was still fit, I was twice his age. It was hardly fair to him ...  
  
"I thank you for your instruction today, Kaigan," Obiareus said suddenly. I glanced at him; he was poking the fire with a long stick, and his eyes were enormous in the darkness. "And I apologize for my rudeness of the last few days ... and of earlier."  
  
His mention of apology reminded me of mine. "No, it is I who must apologize to you, Obiareus," I said, barely refraining from calling him Kleinos. "You took no advantage in the spring. If anyone did, it was I. I acted foolishly, to ask of you something you may not wish to give."  
  
Obiareus' mouth lifted wryly. "I will not argue ... I have had my fill of argument lately." He gave me a quick look that I could not interpret before continuing. "You ... you have proven to me that you have much to teach me. Not in ... not in combat alone, either."  
  
I frowned for a moment, then realized what he must be talking about. I was glad for the darkness then, for it hid my face. "That is ... something that comes to every man ... in time ... Obiareus ..." I said. The ache in my chest grew until it felt it might choke me.  
  
"I would ... be glad of your tutelage in that area as well, my ... my Philetor," Obiareus said softly, hesitantly. His eyes came up to meet mine, and my breath was suddenly shallow.  
  
"It would ..." oh, Inanna. Did he mean it? Did he mean to call me his Philetor, or was he merely playing? Could I take the chance? Could I bear not to? "It would ... be ... my honor," I whispered.  
  
He moved closer to me, and I could smell him, his maleness, the sweat of our exertions earlier, the smoke from the fire, the herbs from the rabbits. His hair smelled of lavender. "I would not wish to take advantage," he said, his voice low. "I would not wish ... to hurt you further."  
  
"You could not," I told him, surprised to realize it was so, surprised to realize how I ached for him, surprised, at the last, to realize I was kissing him.  
  
And he was kissing me back.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
I woke slowly to a muzzy knowledge that I was wrapped up in warm, strong arms. It was alien to me, and yet so perfect. I had slept draped along Kai's body in a way that I had never, ever been able to tolerate from another lover -- and yet here I was, pillowed on his broad chest. My leg was slung between his, my arm wrapped possessively -- ai, gods, yes! -- possessively around his body. What should have disconcerted me was that we had fallen asleep amid long, languid kisses and he had never --  
  
No, he had never taken me. So tired had I been, and so concerned was he that we might abuse each other somehow in our fervor that he had demurred from more than slow kisses. Those, we had shared until I was hot and panting, and then more until I was calm and sleepy, and then again ... he had bewitched me, certainly. I did not know how I had come to want him so much in so short a time. I could see it now, and so help me, I did not care.  
  
Almost of their own volition, my lips began to move over his skin, here catching a light sprinkling of hair, there ensnaring a warm, firming nipple. It was not long before I had to have his mouth again. To that he woke, groaning softly and settling his hand into my hair, his fingers sifting through the strands he had unplaited the night before.  
  
His body felt so good next to mine, so irresistible. He was all warm skin and well-tanned lines, but that was not all. I wanted to trace every part of him and know him completely. I wanted his voice in my head, the smell of him in my nose, ai. Once more that sense of never being able to get enough invaded me, and I was lost.  
  
"Speak, Kaigan," I told him hoarsely, planting small kisses along the beard at his jaw. "Speak to me." I could not tell him how suddenly I needed him. How could I explain that I had gone from faint excitement to --  
  
To what? He had been waiting, it was true, but for what had he been waiting? Had I given it?  
  
"Speak?" he asked me incredulously, his voice rough. "I cannot -- ah, yes ... speak ... tell me, what shall I speak of, my Kleinos?"  
  
"Of Aegypt," I said quickly, the first thing I could think of that was not his Siobhan. My lips caught at his ear, and I whispered, "Tell me of the sands, or the river, or the people. I do not care." I needed his voice drowning out my thoughts, for they were more dangerous even than his passion.  
  
But he caught me to him and kissed me, his long, large hands in my hair and his mouth hungry under mine. He tilted me and upended me until I was on my back beneath him. He carefully held himself over me but I put my hands around his waist and tugged him down.  
  
"I am no trinket," I breathed against his throat. " _Teach,_ do not coddle." It was pale humor as he settled his body on mine, his shaft hot and hard against my hip. I gasped and tried to arch up into him, but he had me in weight and determination.  
  
"Slowly," Kaigan admonished me. "We have so much time, my Kleinos."  
  
Slowly, indeed, he began to move over me, his skin sliding against mine. Ai, it was sweet, so sweet, so soft and hard, and so different. I held him to me as he directed our bodies and our mouths, slowing me when I wanted to ravish his lips and tongue or turn him over. I yearned to feel him inside me in a way that I had never wanted Xanthus -- I had always done the taking -- but gods above and below, I wanted to give myself to this barbarian.  
  
"So eager," he breathed against the corner of my mouth.  
  
"Yes," I agreed, clutching him to me as he moved so excruciatingly slowly over me.  
  
When he pulled away from me, I moaned in protest, but his absence yielded such promise -- he returned with a small pot of thick oil that he had no doubt brought for his knife but now -- oh, now!  
  
Dipping his fingers into it, he stared down at me with such longing in his eyes that I thought my heart would burst in reply to it. How had this happened? How had he delved into that place inside me where no one else had reached?  
  
But those were thoughts for another time as his warm, rough hand slid over my skin, spreading the oil and wrenching cries from me. I tried to thrust up into that hand, but its mate pinned me down.  
  
"Slowly," he whispered once more, and then, to my surprise, moved over me again, as he had been. I was not sure what to make of it -- he had oiled me. But ahh, gods, when he rejoined me on the pallet, the skin of his thick erection was now made unutterably smooth and slick with the oil. It gave against mine, slippery and hot until I was gasping and thrusting against him mindlessly. Any idea of what I might have done, or had wanted to do, was lost to the feel of him against me this way.  
  
"Kaigan," I gasped, pulling his head down, finding his mouth again until cries wrenched themselves out of my chest. Pleasure bloomed inside me, then exploded, causing me shudders and tense, broken whimpers.  
  
When I looked up at him, he smiled, though his eyes were somewhat lost. "My Obia," he sighed, "that was far more beautiful than I could have hoped." So saying, he thrust against my hip, now slick and warm with my own release -- once, twice, his eyes caught with mine and his lips parted with his startled, pleasured groans. The third thrust forced him to close his eyes and drop his head onto my shoulder, and the fourth -- a long, shaky moan spilled from him as it broke over him, his own release. He tensed, clinging to me and shaking, then went still, mindful only enough not to press me too hard into the rocks. I would not have cared, he was so ... I could find no words. He is the poet; I am only a warrior.  
  
"My Philetor," I sighed, stroking his back softly and relishing the title. His slow, contented sigh told me far more than any words might have. I did not know how I had ever found the words to deny that he was, indeed, my Philetor, my lover. I scarcely knew him, but that did not seem to matter -- I knew enough. He had enough honor to deny me when anyone else would have taken me coarsely; he had enough sense to know when it was time to speak and when to fight; he had enough desire, and yet enough thought, to wait, to be patient. Ai, Mother, Xanthus, Palaemon, I can only thank you for driving me from my home and into his arms.  
  
After a moment, he shifted from my body and tugged me into his arms, enfolding me against him. I cared nothing about the stickiness between us. His warm strength surrounded me, and I nuzzled at his chest, smelling his skin.  
  
"You did not speak," I admonished him softly, petting the muscular chest against which I was trapped. "I wanted your lion's purr filling my head as I --" I stopped, flushing and pressing my forehead against his chest to hide. Ai, one hot, sticky encounter and he had turned me rambling and senseless, already laying claims to him.  
  
Kaigan pulled back from me, his huge hand tipping my face up. I was forced to look into his deep, blue eyes as he paused, gathering his words.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
Kissing my Kleinos is like sipping the finest honey.  
  
He was as I knew he would be, eager and open and honest with his affection, with his needs. We kissed the night before, in the light of the stars, and his mouth was warm, and inviting, and so very true, so very _there_. I let my hands comb through his long, beautiful hair and made love to his mouth while he responded in kind, until we were both drunk with passion and dizzy with the taste of each other.  
  
Then, he fell asleep, between one kiss and the next, ah, he fell asleep on top of me, his head over my heart, filling my arms with his warm body and my nose with his scent and my lips with his taste. I held him carefully, tightly, cradled within the care I had for him, and let myself drift off as well, consciously trying to forget the oath I had broken, was breaking, with every beat of my heart.  
  
And in the morning, he woke me with more kisses. I felt his hard length branding my hip as he kissed me. Inanna, you know I am no stranger to the ways of love men have, and I dearly wished to have him inside me. But you have counseled me to patience, and it was wise counsel -- my Kleinos is hurt and tender, and requires gentle handling. So I merely made our bodies slick with the olive oil I carry with me, and let him drive himself to completion under me. His face as he was overtaken with passion was the most beautiful thing I have seen in many, many years.  
  
Once he had reached his pinnacle, I loosed the reins on my own need and let myself seek a finish. The sudden, almost surprising ecstasy was nearly like to pain for me, that is how long it had been since I sought a lover, since I allowed myself to feel like this. I buried my head in his neck and shuddered out my pleasure, holding him tightly.  
  
No matter how tightly I held him, he responded with more. Ah, how my Kleinos has stolen my heart.  
  
When I could again move, I deemed I must have been crushing him with my superior weight, so I rolled us over, bringing him with me. He nestled into my arms as if the gods had made him specifically for that purpose, and sighed with a contentment that made me feel both smug and tender.  
  
"You did not speak," he whispered finally, and I frowned, thinking back. Yes, he had asked me to speak when I was purely incapable of rational thought, much less the mechanics of vocalizing anything coherent. "I wanted your lion's purr filling my head as I ..." he trailed off, then buried his face in my chest.  
  
My Kleinos was embarrassed! No, this would never do. Gently but inexorably, I framed his sweet face in one hand and lifted it from its hiding place. I looked deeply into his eyes for a moment, then kissed his nose and nuzzled it. "My Kleinos must always feel free to request of his Philetor whatever he wishes," I said softly. "It is my honor and pleasure to give to my Kleinos anything he so desires, from the lowliest pebble on the beach to the brightest star in the heavens." Even as I said it, I knew it was true. Were Obiareus to demand the moon, I would begin to build a ladder.  
  
He blinked, then slowly smiled, a smile I had never before seen on his face. Oh, I had seen him smile, many times, but this ... this was a look composed of equal parts joy, awe and sheer, sweet adoration. It was the latter that brought me down to earth. "But ..." I said, finding my own shame in how I felt, "my Kleinos must also be careful ... for his Philetor is ..." I swallowed and it was my turn to hide my face.  
  
"What, Kaigan?" He asked me, tracing my large, broken nose with one finger. What could a gift of the gods like him see in a mere man like me? "Please, tell me."  
  
It was a struggle, but I managed to get the words out. "I would ask you ... to be careful," I mumbled, finally, "in what you wish for. Receiving the affection of one such as me could bring you trouble, Obiareus," I finished, all in a rush. "There are ... so many things you don't know about me. And it would be my undoing to know I caused you pain."  
  
That smile was back, and I realized with a pang of conscience that I never wanted anyone else in this world or out of it to see it on his lovely face -- except me. "I am not afraid," Obiareus said firmly. The adoration in his eyes shamed me further. "And I will make it a point to never ask more than my Philetor can or would give me."  
  
Did I say I was shamed? I was, for ever thinking that this young man could be shallow and vain. He is a treasure of great, rare price, Inanna.  
  
But you knew that, didn't you, my goddess?  
  
 **OBIAREUS:**  
  
There had been something in his eyes as he'd gazed at me, warning me against himself. What was it that lurked there so hotly? I knew I had not had everything from him he'd sought to tell me. Still, I know all too well that sometimes, there are no words, and sometimes, where there are the words, they are not what we wish to say.  
  
Knowing this, I yet found myself promising him things that should never have come from my mouth, and I had told him that I was not afraid, when I should have been terrified. He ... he had promised me such things, and I should not have allowed it.  
  
But if I never called him to his word, then what harm was there?  
  
After a while, we rose at last. My hunger was beginning to get the best of me, as was my need to be clean of the sweat and stickiness we had created between us. Moving to my pack, I hoped only that my mother had thought to include some cloth or another for my washing.  
  
My hand encountered something within the bag that quite distracted me from my desire for the spring. It was a sheathed dagger, small and light, with green-dyed, braided goatskin covering its hilt. In the base of the wooden hilt, where the leather ended, was carefully carved the symbol of Xanthus' household.  
  
Was it a gift, or something else? My scorpion of a lover had given me what appeared to be a present -- one that matched my belt and fillet, one that was meant to appeal to my vanity but now only made me frown. Ai, but we are a strange people if our gifts to one another are all blood-drawing weapons. Still, I strapped the thing to my calf, thinking that at least here in the wilds, it might be useful.  
  
I wondered, though, what he had intended me to use it for?  
  
I did not, after all, find a cloth in the bag, but I did find the small vial of oil that my mother had always supplied me with. She was given to taking lavender flowers and pressing and crushing them into oil from the almonds. As a child, she had always taken this oil and spread a bit onto her fingers, then brushed her fingers through my hair. The ritual that had always soothed me now made me sigh and frown as my erstwhile lover's gift had -- still, as with the dagger, I tucked the oil into my belt, thinking I would use it in spite of my sting at my mother's actions. My need to bathe myself -- among other things -- was strengthening. Smiling to myself, I replayed the morning's exertions, putting the haunts of my past aside. I decided that if this simple life was the life of a Kleinos, then I stood to be very happy here.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
He is happier, now -- or at least, more content. Ah, the joy in my heart to know that I contributed to his contentedness. I am well and truly lost, I fear, and though a small part of me still cries out in anguish, the most of me is content to live in each hour as it happens, and let the future care for itself.  
  
I intended on joining him soon enough in the spring to get clean of the wondrous stickiness we had created on each other, when my stomach rumbled. Though reluctant to wash his scent from me, I also knew that it was prudent, and further, that I could replenish it any time I wished. What a marvelous thought that was!  
  
We still had one pomegranate left from the food I had brought with us. I knew if my stomach was empty, my Kleinos, being younger, must be equally as hungry. I cracked the fruit open and carried it with me to join him in the spring -- it would do to break our fast until later.  
  
He was standing hip-deep in water and stretching, his back to me as I approached, and I was stunned anew at his beauty. Forcing myself to relax, I stepped into the water and approached him, admiring the way the water outlined the muscles of his golden back.  
  
When I was close enough, I gently wrapped one arm around him, showing him the halved pomegranate. "Hungry, my Kleinos?" I asked him softly, and kissed his wet shoulder. How this wonder could feel my voice was beautiful was beyond me, but there was little I wouldn't do to make him happy.  
  
"I hunger, my Philetor," he replied, his voice husky. He took the half of the fruit while giving me a look that purely melted me. He scooped out some of the juice sacs with two fingers and held them out, offering.  
  
Who was I to resist? I opened my mouth and swallowed the fruit and his fingers, savoring the delicious combined flavor I tasted. He never took his eyes from mine, though his darkened and his lids drooped in pleasure as I gently sucked his fingers clean. "A wonderful taste," I murmured, then bent my head to kiss him.  
  
"It improves with age," he replied, kissing me back.  
  
I gently broke from him and copied his motion, offering him a scoop of juicy fruit. He did the same as I had, licking my fingers to capture all the taste, suckling me gently and deeply. I felt myself rise again at his actions, and marveled, for I was old and I had thought such things were beyond me. But my beautiful young lover, it seemed, was determined to tax whatever strength I had left, and I knew I would cheerfully and blissfully allow him to do so.  
  
Continuing to feed him fruit with my fingers, I nudged him gently back until he reached the sun-warmed rock on which I had taken my ease the day before. Distracted, I passed him my half of the fruit and then lifted him out of the water with one heave. He shouted with laughter at my actions, then gasped as I lowered my mouth to his rigid manhood and swallowed it whole.  
  
"Dear gods!" he nearly shrieked as I sucked him down, and he dropped the pomegranate in the pool in order to clutch at my head. "Kai! What do you ... ah!"  
  
Ah, Inanna, I thought his kisses had tasted sweet. His glorious cock was thick and hard with blood and the crown, displayed through the foreskin, was ruddy and weeping. His taste was rich and heady, and I savored it as I caressed the skin of his pubes and petted his testicles. He was moaning continuously, nearly sobbing with the pleasure of what I was doing.  
  
I pride myself on my skill at this, and used all my learned tricks to give him as much pleasure as I could. I suckled him as a babe does his mother, swallowing all of him gratefully, and allowing him to thrust as much as he liked into me. It wasn't long before he was brokenly urging me up and away but Inanna, I would taste all of him, and so when he spilled into my mouth I drank him down, savoring his screams of ecstasy as much as the honey of his essence.  
  
When he was soft and small again, I finally released him with one last gentle kiss. I looked up to find him all but insensible on the rock, limp and panting. "Kleinos?" I spoke softly, heaving myself out of the water to join him in the sun. When he did not respond immediately, I kissed him gently. "Obia?"  
  
His eyes, when they at last focused on me, were stunned. He blinked as if he had never seen me before, and had to swallow several times before he could speak. "I -- I have never ... how ... "  
  
Slowly, I realized, to my shock -- he had never experienced oral ministrations before. No one had ever loved him that way? How pleased I was that I could provide that for my Kleinos. I kissed him again, more gently still, and pressed his sweet body to mine.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
Ai, gods.  
  


* * *

**KAIGAN:**  
  
My own need was lost in the pleasure I felt at being able to literally remove my Kleinos' words from his mouth. He lay on the rock in the sun and stared at me, his eyes glazed, as I petted and soothed him down from his over-intense bliss. But soon, the rumbling in our bellies reminded us we had only a bit of fruit -- and some protein, for me -- to break our fast.  
  
He sighed finally, and smiled at me. "You have so much to teach me," he murmured.  
  
"My honor and my pleasure," I told him again, smiling gently. "Shall we go find a sacrifice to our hunger, my Kleinos?"  
  
"I will fetch my sling," he replied, and rose -- somewhat shakily, I am not too proud to claim -- and moved back to our camp. I followed after once again rinsing myself off, and finding the remains of the pomegranate and removing it from the spring.  
  
The rabbits were slowly becoming wary of us, but my Obiareus' sling still found them easily enough. He took out four, but one managed to dive into a thicket before dying. When we reached the spot, a young, skinny dog -- perhaps a run-away from a villa -- darted away from us, Obia's kill in its mouth. I laughed, seeing that the dog obviously needed the meat far more than us, and turned to tell Obiareus so.  
  
He was frozen into place, his eyes wide and his mouth in an 'O' of surprise. "I had nearly forgotten," he whispered, and I reached out to touch his cheek.  
  
"Kleinos?"  
  
"I had a dream, Philetor," he said, blinking at me. "A most strange dream."  
  
 **OBIAREUS:**  
  
I had wanted to talk to him about the astonishing thing he had done to me, but all thought of it fled as I saw the cur that had stolen my rabbit. The dream that I had the night before the last came rushing back to me, and when he turned to me and bade me tell him, I knew I had to. Perhaps with his understanding of the minds of men and gods, he might help me determine what to make of it.  
  
"Let us catch our morning meal first," I said quietly, "and then I will tell you."  
  
He nodded his head, then made a small gesture in the direction of the area where I'd killed our food, murmuring something in another tongue.  
  
"What is that?" I asked him.  
  
"A prayer of thanks to the spirit of the rabbit, who has given some of its own for our purpose."  
  
I allowed my puzzlement to show. "You thank the rabbit? For allowing us to -- ?"  
  
"It is only right," Kaigan told me quietly. "It is a sign of respect. The earth yields up what we eat and drink. If we do not thank its creatures for feeding us, Inanna will surely grow tired of our rudeness." He smiled, and though his eyes shone with amusement, there was a kind of reverence there. "It does not do to be _too_ rude to Inanna."  
  
I did not fully understand -- I could not be certain I ever would understand the ways of his Inanna -- but I did not question. Kaigan had already shown me the wisdom of respect, and I would not argue it now.  
  
We returned to our camp with the rabbits. Together, we skinned and cleaned them, then built a fire on which to roast them. It would have been far quicker to split the tasks, but it was an uncanny thing to want to be so near him -- to want to be so near _anyone_ \-- and so I allowed myself to relish it. There could certainly be no harm in sharing the time.  
  
He spitted the rabbits and I prodded the fire. We sat in companionable silence as we turned our meat over the flames, and between us we soon had a good meal.  
  
"It was a misty dusk," I began without preamble, waving my spitted meat through the air to cool it. I felt Kaigan's attention immediately upon me, and looked at him. "You and I were hunting. We had not yet found any meat, but we were far away from our pallets." I looked around us, trying to find the place where the dream began, but could not. "I do not know of the place where we were, but in the dream, I knew it well." I shrugged; that is the way of dreams, sometimes, and Kaigan knew it.  
  
I plucked a strand of meat from my spit and hissed -- it was yet hot -- and licked my fingers. "Dark was closing far too quickly. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, we were surrounded by wolves."  
  
Kaigan's eyes grew wide. "Did they attack?"  
  
I shook my head. Pausing only long enough to eat a bit of meat, I went on, "You and I were enclosed within them, though, six, seven, I cannot remember." The images were so clear to me, so sure as though they were memories and not fantasies visited on me in my sleep. "Your back was pressed to mine, and we circled as they closed in. They were snarling. One began to snap." I sighed. "We were alone and trapped in the wilds, with no one to help us and only a labrys in our hands." I looked at him questioningly, hoping that perhaps he, or his Inanna, might shed light on this dream of mine.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
I thought about Obiareus' dream while I ate my sacrificial rabbit -- the meat was becoming tiresome, perhaps we should look for other game. "Is there any more?" I asked him when he stopped talking, and he shook his head. "How did you feel about me in the dream?" I persisted, and he looked at me from under his long eyelashes.  
  
"Safe," was his one-word reply. Then he went back to eating, and after a while, I did as well, thinking strongly.  
  
The Aegyptians held wolves in frightened awe, but the Celts of Gaul looked upon them as good -- well, except when their wild hunter god, Herne, was on the prowl. I had found wolves and, indeed, all canines, to be good, honest beasts, not prone to attacking humans unless sorely provoked.  
  
So, perhaps his dream had nothing to do with the wolves, but instead with him and me. "We stood," I said slowly, thoughtfully, "back to back, and faced the threat together?" I looked at him for confirmation, but he would not look directly at me, though he did nod. "Then, perhaps, it is meant as a warning to you -- to us -- that we must face adversity joined, rather than apart," I finally said. I spoke somewhat reluctantly. While I had -- to some degree -- come to terms with my infatuation, I did not believe that Obiareus felt the same way towards me. He had not indicated as such, and I confess, Inanna, I did not wish to risk my heart any more than I had already. I could love from afar, but did not know if I could speak of it yet. It hurt to think that my feelings may not be returned.  
  
While I had ruminated, apparently, so had my Kleinos. He studied me now and I wondered what he was thinking. "I will think on it further," I reassured him. "I do not know, however, if more insight will come."  
  
"It may have been enough to speak of it to you," he said, throwing a well-chewed bone on the fire. "Dreams are ... difficult."  
  
"Yes," I agreed readily. "I believe that sometimes we don't understand the warning in a dream until it is too late."  
  
He nodded his agreement and understanding, but did not speak, though I could tell he had something on his mind. After a long silence, where I wrapped our left-over meat in grape and thyme leaves for later dinner, he finally asked a question that had apparently been bothering him. "Where did you ... learn ... to do that?" he asked, and his face flushed most endearingly.  
  
I did not pretend to misunderstand him -- he was not referring to my storing of the meat. "When I was pledged to the service of Inanna," I said, fondly touching her lion, "I served in her temple in Nineveh, guarding the temple prostitutes against those who would become to -- violent." He looked at me askance. "You must understand, it is a sacred ritual for one to seek solace in the arms of one of Inanna's Chosen, but there are times when strong drink, or, perhaps, a lack of propriety, will cause a seeker to become less than welcome. It is then the guard's duty to ensure that the Chosen are safe and not molested in any way."  
  
His eyes had grown rounder as I spoke. "Were _you_ one of the ... the chosen?" he asked, his voice breathless.  
  
"Me? Oh, no," I laughed. "That was not my path. I was not born of Nineveh, and so when I reached fourteen summers, I was branded into the service of the king." I turned and showed him my caste mark, low on my back. "I was lucky to have been chosen to serve Inanna in any way," I added with a fond smile. "She has been my patron since I was born, and I have served her faithfully -- well, more or less -- my whole life." I wrapped up the last of the meat and set it aside. "But while I served in her temple, I was able to learn from the Chosen the ways of the flesh." I gave him a quick smile. "I am a eager student, in most things," I said, letting my smile turn wry.  
  
He smiled back, for all it was tentative, and I was happy to see it. "I would ... I would like to learn this from you as well," he said, his voice soft, his cheeks reddened.  
  
"My Kleinos has but to ask," I told him, equally softly.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He had asked me how I'd felt about him in my dream. It was something I hadn't considered, but I knew my answer was true: I _had_ felt safe. With Kaigan at my back, I had known somehow without thinking that we would be well. This dream showed me certainty, even after we'd fought and our future here looked bleak and ugly.  
  
"We." But there was no "we," I knew. There was only Kaigan ... and me: two individuals. I could never cleave myself to another, as I seemed to have done in the dream.  
  
There was no one else I could have dreamed of, I know. The idea of Xanthus in such a dream, paired so to me, made me smile in derision. Palaemon? Never. Not even my own mother could harbor me in her arms as protectively as Kaigan, I knew. How could this be? How was it possible that this man, whom I barely knew, made me feel as though hordes of wolves could not touch me? What was the adversity, then?  
  
I still could not puzzle it out, and so I moved on to the place most likely for my mind to go: that thing he had amazingly done to me with his mouth. Ai, gods, I would be lying if I did not say it made my mind quite leave me.  
  
The idea that my Philetor had lain with sacred concubines to learn such traits gave me a hot, strange feeling, both pleasant and unpleasant. Hekate had no such concubines to her name, and so the idea was as foreign to me as his markings, and as unfathomable. It was but one more thing for me to puzzle over among all the differences between us. And yet ... there was a strange disquiet inside me. I longed once again to learn more about him, to learn all there was to know about him and his goddess, and ease this growing understanding of my own ignorance. Each new thing that fell from his mouth (and, it would seem, each new thing he did with his mouth!) showed me something more about the way the sun slanted on the world, and something more about him, in its light.  
  
Now the sun's light shone on him squarely, and while I wished for dark starlight to hide my flush, I knew I could not wait so long as all that. It had been shocking, _devastating,_ to feel his mouth upon me so, but it had been sweet -- so unbearably sweet that had I only been capable of speech, I would have asked him to do it again. No, that is not true; had he done it more, I may well have died of it. It had made me want to crawl out of my skin for all its intensity. My screams had well nigh echoed throughout the valley and might even have been heard in the villa on the ridge.  
  
I knew even as I flushed hotly and smiled in terrible embarrassment that I wanted to hear his screams echoing, too.  
  
"My Kleinos has but to ask," he murmured, and I found myself blushing again like some senseless boy in the throes of heady infatuation. Rising from my seat by the fire, I moved closer to him. Ai, I could already feel that warmth creeping into me again, and soon, perhaps sooner than I wanted, I knew I would be crawling over him, in desperate need of his skin and his mouth and whatever part of him I could reach. For now, while I could still stave it off, I wished him to teach me.  
  
"I am asking, my Philetor," I smiled. My eyes wanted to glance away, but I kept them firmly locked with his. My body was all I that could offer him, and so while I offered it, I would at least be true. I wanted to be _with_ him in a way that I had never cared to be with anyone.  
  
"Very well," he breathed, and that soft rumble made me shiver. He moved to simply tug his breechclout away and lift the hem of his chiton, but it was not enough.  
  
"Please," I said quietly. "I want to touch you and look at you."  
  
He removed his clothing silently, my tall, broad barbarian, every stitch and strap down to his sandals. I marveled at the strength I could see in him as he bent and finished undressing himself, as though it shone through his skin. Perhaps, somehow, it did.  
  
Quickly, I stepped close to him, even before he could straighten. "Instruct me, Philetor, in the ways of this thing you have bewitched me with."  
  
His strong arms came around me and he kissed me, even before he would speak. It, too, was sweet, sweeter still than our first kisses had been: so tender, so soft, though I wanted to devour him for sheer hunger. Kaigan's long hand on my hardness, though, was enough to pull a groan from me and make me push his hand away.  
  
"I am yet starved for you," I sighed. "Do not touch me or you will see me languid and sleepy before you have anything out of me."  
  
He laughed quietly. "I will try, Kleinos, to restrain myself." His hand cupped my face instead, and I sighed.  
  
Slowly, carefully, I kissed across his beard, relishing the soft prickle before it yielded to the smooth skin of his throat. He groaned softly as I found my slow way down his body, using my lips over his skin as I would over his mouth. It was good; his scent was clean and warm and it made me want to lick and taste him. As quickly as the thought came to me, I did, and his answering moan was gratifying. This intimacy and closeness astounded me even as I wondered why I had never been loved -- or loved anyone, myself -- with lips and tongue.  
  
I slid my mouth over his hip, then, sinking my knees into the soft grass before him. Softly, flushing even as I grew daring, I drew back to look at him.  
  
My eyes went wide. "Kaigan, ai, what is this _injury_?" His erection was thin and stretched taut, strange and hard, and I touched it with my fingertips, staring at it. It was an oddity!  
  
Kaigan groaned at my touch, and, afraid I had hurt him, I jerked my hand away.  
  
"Ah," he said shakily, and I could swear he staggered back a half step. "Obiareus, I think -- perhaps I might explain ... ."  
  
Averting my eyes and rising, I swallowed. I remembered my brief admonition to myself and met his gaze again. "Explain, then, my Philetor, for I have never seen such a one as _that._ "  
  


* * *

**KAIGAN:**  
  
My Kleinos must be demon-spawn, he has the power to reduce me to little more than a babbling idiot in just a few words and touches. Whereas a few days before, I would have scoffed at anyone suggesting I would seriously take another lover, today, I find myself eager to teach him everything I know -- in the martial arts as well as the arts of the body. When I realized he had never been taken to passion orally before, I had a suspicion that he would wish me to teach him, and I was not mistaken.  
  
His voice as he whispered, "I am asking, my Philetor," came close to undoing me, and his eyes ... ah, Inanna, his eyes! I have come to realize that they are never the same color from one moment to the next, and here, they were a deep, smoky green, not unlike the sea. I would have done anything for him then, stolen from a babe, committed usury, even turned away from you, my lovely goddess. But he would not ask that of me. Instead, he would ask me to teach him how to love me. I hardened with gratifying, even dizzying, speed at the thought.  
  
I had thought the feel of him tasting my skin was intoxicating, but to see him kneeling before me -- ah, let me say that it was nearly over before begun. It took me a few moments to realize he was concerned about me -- his fingers on my cock felt like burning brands and it was all I could do to keep from spilling right then.  
  
He thought I was injured! Were I not so close to my ecstasy I might have chuckled. Instead, I stepped back a pace and breathed deeply to try and control my runaway lust. "Obiareus, I think -- perhaps I might explain ... ." I managed to struggle out, then watched in dismay as he rose to his feet, his face a combination of confusion and worry.  
  
"Explain, then, my Philetor, for I have never seen such a one as _that,_ " he said, and I drew in another breath to try and calm my unsteady nerves. It did nothing to alleviate my desperate need, however.  
  
"You have never before seen a man who has been cut?" I asked him, and to my own ears, my voice sounded hoarse. He shook his head in reply, and remained mute. His eyes were large and focused on me, and I was overcome by a feeling of gratitude over his lovely solicitousness. "It is not so strange a thing, my Kleinos. It is merely the way of my family, and many others of Akkad. Shortly after a boy is born, his foreskin is removed." I shrugged, glad to be able to once again feel in control.  
  
"This ... it sounds ... barbaric," Obiareus said, and I smiled gently at him.  
  
"No more so than other customs I have known of," I told him. "Some Nubian tribes do the same with their women babies, and that, I believe, is vastly cruel."  
  
He shuddered; obviously he agreed with me. "But ... did it hurt?"  
  
"I do not even remember it," I said. "I was but a babe in arms. In Nineveh, where I grew, some men were cut and some were not. It was often a topic of frivolous discussion in Inanna's temple, over which man could feel more and better -- one who was cut, or one who was not."  
  
At that, Obiareus smiled. "And was there a consensus?" He asked me, and his hand once again reached out to me, touching and caressing my chest.  
  
I breathed in again, relieved to be past _this_ crisis. "No, no consensus was reached," I murmured, gently capturing his hand and kissing his fingers. "I am the way I am ... can you accept me the way I am?"  
  
"Oh, yes," Obiareus said, and his eyes glittered. "I would like to continue with our lesson then," he added, leaning forward to suckle at my neck.  
  
I groaned. "My Kleinos," I whispered, and fisted my hands at my sides to prevent them from reaching for him. My arousal, never far banked, roared back.  
  
Once again, Obiareus descended to his knees before me, and this time, he eyed me with curiosity. "It is so different," he murmured, again reaching out to stroke me. I closed my eyes then, for I knew if I were to watch him, it would be my undoing, and a teacher must always do his best for the student. "I do not believe I have ever before examined a man this closely," Obiareus said, running his callused fingers over my shaft and testicles.  
  
"There is great pleasure to be had in this, for both parties," I told him tightly, holding on to my sanity with both hands.  
  
"But what is the taste like?" He asked me, distracted. Before I could answer, his tongue darted out to lick. I'm afraid I shouted, Inanna, and came so close to the edge. "You taste warm and salty, Philetor," he murmured, then before I could breathe again, he had lowered his lips around me.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
I suppose his Inanna's Chosen had the right of things, for the groan that issued from Kaigan's throat was most satisfying. He seemed not to know what to do with his hands -- one descended upon my hair, and just as it began to caress, disappeared again. Very slowly I opened my lips to engulf the near-purple head of his cock. I wondered, truly, how he had managed to so completely engulf me in his mouth as he had. Then again, I am not as large he is -- as I had long observed, the barbarian is tall and broad -- that is enough said, I think.  
  
Lowering my head, I heard a hiss of air before he grunted quickly, "No teeth. Cover ... with your -- ahhh ..." It was something I dimly recalled him doing, so I did it in kind and was rewarded with another long, helpless moan.  
  
Kaigan's very nearness and the hot intimacy of what I was doing made me dizzy. I was fascinated by the feel of him, hot and heavy in my mouth, and by the taste. I lowered my mouth as much as I could, but his thickness and length was too far beyond me. Slowly, I raised my head and slid my mouth back to the crown, swallowing. Kaigan's weakened shout sounded desperate to my ears. Pleased, I wrapped my hand around his hard shaft, steadying his length so that I could taste him again, properly. I lapped at the tip of his cock again, and a small noise escaped me as his huge, usually gentle hand sank into my hair tightly.  
  
"Obia I am --" he managed to grunt before tensing solidly and shouting out his pleasure. I scarcely had an instant to think before Kaigan's hot release pulsed into my mouth, surprising me. I would have pulled away -- truly, it was my first instinct -- but ai, he sounded so beautiful at the peak of release. I swallowed his seed and moaned softly at the taste of it and the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of rendering him so insensible. His groans faded away to rough panting and shaky moans before he pressed me away from him and sank to his knees, pulling me into his arms.  
  
I had, it would seem, stricken him speechless. I was very, very pleased with myself.  
  
"It went so quickly, my Philetor," I teased softly, whispering into his hair as I held him to me. "I must practice more, and so prolong your pleasure."  
  
And my great, huge barbarian, I am thrilled to say, whimpered.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
My Kleinos ...  
  
He is a quick study.  
  
Ah. Inanna. Preserve me in your arms, for surely I will die here, and be happy of it.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
Kaigan calmed slowly, drawing me to the ground with him. I simply rested on his chest, listening to his breathing grow steady again. After a moment, his arms tightened around me. He kissed the top of my head and rumbled softly, "You have turned me back to a score of years, I am so short-lived at your hands."  
  
I laughed, happy and surprised to hear him so awed. "My hands were scarcely in play, Philetor."  
  
He truly seemed joyed to hear me laugh, and before I could do other than smile at him again, he swept me to the ground beneath him and kissed me soundly.  
  
I have found that it is a delicious joy to kiss him. I have seldom bothered with it before; Xanthus was too needy and I feared that he would grow too close with me, closer than he had. He was always so hungry, it seemed, and kisses shared do something ... they bare the soul in a way that animal pleasure does not. Ilus had never cared; it might have been pleasant to while away hours this way with him, had he known a thing about pleasure in the first place.  
  
I flushed a little, wondering if Kaigan thought of me so -- but no, I supposed that he would not dishonor either of us by pretending to desire me. Not that he could pretend; the heat and hardness of him surely would not come of its own volition had it no reason. It humbled me and made me prideful at once.  
  
I could hardly stand to question why I allowed my Philetor to kiss me so senseless. In the end, I decided it was simple: I was only his Kleinos, and at the end of the second moon's turning, I would be released to my own devices again. Oh ... I had already decided that I would not move for redress against this "hardship;" in three days' time I had already come far enough to understand that there were many things my lovely barbarian could teach me -- in the ways of the world as well as in the ways of pleasure. But of course I knew I would simply return to the barracks and continue to live out my life. What other solution was there, no matter how much he could teach me?  
  
And teach me, he did. The days slid by like water leaving the shore. We hunted, we fished, we swam, we made love -- all in new and exciting ways. I would never have believed that I was a sheltered boy, but whenever Kaigan spoke of the Asgard, or Bastet, or Marduk, or any one of another armful of gods he knew, I grew amazed at my own ignorance. I scarcely knew my own Hekate, while Kaigan knew more gods than I knew men. I came to adore his stories of Inanna, until soon I was speaking to her myself. Kaigan taught me more plants than any other Jheudi knew; it was a surprise because we were all trained in healing arts. He knew the stars and could show me the gods in them, and animals and mortals who were so great they had been chosen and painted in the sky. I learned over and over that Kaigan could teach me forever and not yet be done.  
  
Once, he showed me a horse in the sky and I felt Heiro with me in that moment. It was so strong that tears came to my eyes. Heiro had always wanted to be a horseman on the mainland; he had always sworn that he would take me with him when he went.  
  
"We will strike out together, you and I," he had promised, when I was barely six years into the world. His slender hand had squeezed my shoulder, and I remember his eyes had been troubled in spite of his smile. He had known even then that our parents, that our country, had their fatal flaws.  
  
"What is it, Kleinos?" Kaigan asked me, concerned. His large hand brushed away a tear that had fallen.  
  
"I cannot bear to think that he is in the underworld. I am lonely without him, even now." The words sounded selfish to me, but I could not help them.  
  
Kaigan only pulled me close to him and stroked my hair. "Siobhan believed that we do not lose those who pass on, Obia. They remain with us in spirit, and in our hearts. If you believe it, you keep him with you. He will not go until you are ready to release him. You may yet surprise yourself."  
  
Yes, my Philetor is wise, and his skills as a lover ... oh, they astounded me. I thanked Inanna every day, every moment his hands or mouth were on me, though he waited long and patiently to allow himself into my body. Inanna, she knows how easily he could reduce me to mindless babbling on the sands, desperate for him. No matter how I pleaded, he finally took his pleasure inside me only when he was certain I could withstand the intimacy.  
  
Ai, and there I can find no assuaging my guilt, for he believed that entering each other's bodies was yet more intimate than kissing. I never told him that I had barely kissed Xanthus, _never_ kissed Ilus, and my handful of other lovers had been either cursory or compulsory.  
  
So the days slipped over the cliffs and pooled into weeks, and soon ... soon it was even with a sigh of regret that I knew we would return in only a score of days. My feelings had sharpened, whetting themselves against the passion he drew out of me again and again, and on the sound of his voice, purring in the darkness, an offering to the goddess that I -- yes, I confess -- had begun, subtly, to claim as my own. Ai, Hekate would have had my head, but somehow ... I felt it worse somehow to know that she was so closely guarded by kings and women who were, themselves, buffered and shielded. I did not know Hekate the way I had come to know Inanna -- and as silly and conniving as Kaigan's goddess could be, I felt a strange closeness to her.  
  
It was but one more day in this endless string of days that, sadly, no longer seemed so endless with the second moon rapidly closing. We had been playing roughly, wrestling in the grass by the spring before simply slipping into the water. He took me slowly on the bank amid hundreds of kisses and sweet, gentle words that warmed me and frightened me. After a while, he confessed to a tightness in his arms and shoulders, and so I obliged him to turn over for something more innocent.  
  
"Kai, my painted barbarian," I sighed, working my hands into the firm flesh of his shoulders, "tell me now of this painting here." I bent and kissed the place on his shoulder where strange symbols were painted within an oval. I felt him tense, then sigh into the himation spread out beneath him.  
  
"It ... it is called a shenu," he said slowly, his voice as tight as his shoulders had been. "It was inked on me in Aegypt."  
  
 **KAIGAN:**  
  
I had hoped to avoid this conversation. I should have known better; my Kleinos, it seems, wants to learn every bit of me, from the inside out, and there is nothing that I can deny him. We have been here more than a month, I should be grateful for the delay, I do suppose. But Inanna, could you not have redirected his curiosity? I could have lived without telling him of my shame.  
  
Ah, but that is probably why you have led him to ask.  
  
His hands are strong, and the slight ache from our wrestling match was gone within moments. But he continued to caress me, and his hands felt so good, I did not stop him. Then, to have him say the words ... ah. He is waiting now, for he knows that I will tell him, he knows that this is another story, and he has come to love my stories, this I know. And I have come to love telling him my stories.  
  
"It ... it is called a shenu," I told him, and my voice seemed reluctant to my ears. "It was inked on me in Aegypt."  
  
He must have heard my hesitation, for he waits again, patiently, for me to continue. It is painful, and I do not want to continue, but I will. He has a right to know my shame. "It was put there by ... by a man named Penmennefer, and it signifies my name in Aegyptian, Kha'y Wahankh, which means that I am strong in life. It was a ... a payment, of sorts, for helping his queen, Nefertiri."  
  
"You helped the queen of Aegypt?" Obiareus asked, his voice incredulous.  
  
Well, I suppose it seems important, from one aspect. "It was nothing," I told him. "Her son, Amenhotep, was ill, and no one seemed to know why. I recognized it and prescribed treatment, which worked. It was merely piles," I smiled at Obiareus, who had moved until he sat before me, watching me with his beautiful eyes. "But the queen was very grateful."  
  
"How did you come to know the queen in the first place, Kaigan?" he asked me, wrapping his arms around his knees as he watched me.  
  
"It was Penmennefer ... he was a king's man, a scribe. He made their strange symbols on sheets of flattened reeds, and showed stonemasons where and how to cut. And I ..." I swallowed and looked away. Now he would know. "I was living with him at the time," I finished, my voice low.  
  
After a moment, I felt his warm hand on mine. "What troubles you about it, Philetor?" he asked, oh, my perceptive Kleinos.  
  
I could not look at him, not and see his gentle, forgiving face. "I will have to tell you the whole story, and it is not a good one, my Kleinos," I whispered.  
  
"I will listen, Kaigan," he said, and his hand remained on mine.  
  
"After ... after I lost Siobhan, I walked for many weeks, until I found a port and a ship to sail on," I told him. I plucked at the grass under my leg. "It was an Aegyptian barque, and it carried me to Avaris, just after the Hyksos were pushed out of Aegypt. You know of the Hyksos here, do you not?"  
  
"Yes," he replied thoughtfully. "My father's father told us very old stories of their ships coming to Thera after the eruption. They were a strange people, he always said. They have not come to Kreta for many years now."  
  
"Yes, they are kin to me from afar, but still their ways are strange," I agreed. "They thought to rule Aegypt, but were only ever able to hold the northern kingdom. By the time I arrived, the southern king, Ahmose, had married his sister and had taken back the north." "He married his sister?" Obiareus blinked, then made a face.  
  
"Yes, the Aegyptians are a strange people as well, my Kleinos. They call their king 'pharaoh' and say he is a god." I shook my head. "I made friends with the sailors on the ship I served, and one of them, Mose, bade me seek out his brother, who worked at the royal palace. I did, and he was Penmennefer. A beautiful, exotic man." I swallowed again at the thought of him.  
  
"He was kind to a stranger, and gave me a place to live, took me in readily. And we grew to be friends, then more than friends. And ..." I took a ragged breath. "He wished me to come to his bed. I refused, for I had sworn never to love another after Siobhan died."  
  
Obiareus made a soft noise, and his hand on mine tightened. Ah, you should not give me pity, my Kleinos, for I am an oath-breaker in so many ways. "He was ... persistent. I tried to explain, but he ... they have strange ideas in Aegypt, and death to them is just another phase of life. He did not understand my sorrow over losing her. I ... to my shame ... I let him take me to bed. I enjoyed it, my Kleinos. I let myself forget my Siobhan."  
  
He said nothing, but I could feel his regard on me. "When he told me of the queen's worry about her son, I offered to help. The cure was simple, and in payment, Nefer inscribed my back with my name and title in a shenu. He wanted to add 'beloved of Penmennefer' as well, but I ... I would not let him. I knew then, I had broken my oath to my Siobhan. I left -- I fled -- soon after." We sat in silence for a time, and listened to the far-off cry of an eagle.  
  
"There is no shame in what you did, my Philetor." Obiareus' voice, when he spoke at last, was soft and gentle, far too gentle for my actions. "She had been gone for many weeks, you said. From what you have told me of her, I'm sure she would not begrudge you your happiness."  
  
Oh, my wise Kleinos. How is it that you read my heart so easily? For that is exactly what I told myself while lying in Nefer's arms. "I broke my vow, Obiareus," I said sadly. "I swore never to love another after Siobhan, and ..." I stopped, the words choked in my throat, for I knew I had done far worse now, gone much further.  
  
Obiareus did not notice my agony, as he spoke again, earnestly. "It was not the same, Kaigan. Siobhan was your wife, whom you loved dearly, is that not so? This man was -- was just someone who helped you, who loved you as you deserved -- deserve. There is no shame in accepting something freely given." It was his turn to look away, and even in my pain I wondered why.  
  
"Perhaps," I murmured. "But the fact remains, I am an oath-breaker. And ... and now ... I am doubly so, I am afraid. I sometimes wonder how you can bear to look at me."  
  
When I dragged my eyes up to meet his, all I saw was confusion, mixed with a compassion I did not deserve. "I swore I would never love again, and I did not ... not with Nefer." Oh, how the pain of my confession filled me. "But ... I have now. For what I feel here, with you, is much more than what I had in Aegypt."  
  
I saw comprehension dawn in his eyes and cursed myself. But he deserved to know how far I had descended, how badly I had failed myself. I only saw the look of fear on his face for a moment before he leapt to his feet and dashed off into the trees.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He loved me ... he loved me? Ai, gods, ai. Inanna preserve him, this could not be. He knew the story, he knew the pain in my heart. How could he love me when he knew I could never, _must_ never return it?  
  
Even then, my own words haunted me: "There is no shame in accepting something given freely." But surely that was not the same! I could not have known -- he'd tricked me --  
  
In the same instant, I knew he had not.  
  
I found a thick, sturdy tree in the woods and moved behind it, wishing to climb into it as I would have ten years ago. But now, it would be to hide, not out of the sheer joy of doing it. No, in very simple words, Kaigan had managed to draw the joy from me completely.  
  
"I will not allow this," I breathed, barely aloud, to the tree. I leaned my palms and forehead onto its rough bark and sighed, cursing my own shakiness. How could Kaigan have allowed himself to do this? I had told him of Heiro and Palaemon. My trust had been abused too much, and love? No love can breathe without trust. Everyone else in my life had failed me: my mother, my Senate ... even Xanthus. I had never been in love -- I had never had a reason to be, and now that I had been scalded on the flames of deceit so often, Kaigan presented me with _this_?  
  
The undergrowth shuffled and crunched, and he was there. His fingertips brushed the tree as he rounded it. I thought of those same fingertips on my skin, over my hair, inside me, and ai, gods. I shut my eyes tightly.  
  
"I will not allow this," I repeated, this time to Kaigan, and he stared back at me.  
  
"My Kleinos, I do not understand. I--" Light seemed to dawn in his eyes, and then just as quickly, dimmed and went out. "You cannot return the heart of one so forsworn," he sighed, his gaze slipping from mine. "I know this." I felt his pain and wished to stop him, but before I could, he plunged onward, "I ask nothing of you, Obiareus. If -- if you so choose, I will return you to Knossos and to your family. It pains me, Inanna knows it does, but I will release you if you ask it of me. I know that you did not come to the woods to hear the declarations of a besotted old fool."  
  
I shook my head hard, laying a hand on his chest, amazed at the way his heart beat so quickly under his chiton. "Kai, no ..." I breathed, knowing I must stop him from his punishment of himself. "No, my Philetor, no ..." I swallowed and closed my eyes, shamed that he blamed himself so for something that was my own difficulty.  
  
"Kai, you must listen," I whispered, pressing myself against him and wrapping my arms, quite unbidden, around his waist. "The fault is not yours, much though I wish I could blame you," I sighed, resting my forehead against his chest. "I cannot love. I simply cannot. I have lost too much faith in men during what you would say are the small years of my life, and though -- though I wish I could return your confession, it is beyond me." I looked up at him pleadingly, and ai, my heart hurt to see the pain in his eyes.  
  
"I will not press you," Kaigan went on, as though he had not heard me. His voice was weighted with sorrow. "I do love you, yes, Inanna help me, but you will never again hear it from my lips. I will not waste your tolerance or patience on the kind of foolish clinging Xanthus did to drive you away."  
  
He tried to pull away from me, my barbarian did, but I held him fast. "Your clinging, I do not mind, my Philetor," I murmured, and as a small smile lit inside his eyes, a voice screamed in my mind that I led him on with false hopes.  
  
Ai, but I wanted him to be happy, even as I knew I was not the one to do so. I had never made anyone happy, now it seemed not even my own mother, and certainly my lovers among the ranks would happily testify to my selfishness, my overbearing demands, my vanity. My throat closed as Kaigan gathered me close to him, rocking me.  
  
"Thank you, Kleinos," he sighed. "I will be careful with you, I swear."  
  
/That is well,/ I thought, my own voice a small, frightened whisper in my mind, /but who will be careful with you?/

* * *

**KAIGAN:**  
  
I do not deserve him, this wondrous golden boy, who can see into me with such ease. I expected him to draw away, to see me in my shame as someone not worthy of trust or affection. Instead, he threw my shame back at me, by claiming the fault lay with him, not with me.  
  
Ah, Inanna. My Kleinos is so very hurt, so very tender. If it is indeed my lot to love him, despite my oath, then I will do my best by him. I will give him the love he deserves, to the best of my ability to do it. I will nurture him, and give him a home, if he so desires.He is worthy, Inanna. He is capable of so much -- his curiosity knows no bounds, his lust for learning is not abated by my constant prattling and wild tales. I am not too proud to admit that from me, he has learned to make love, he has learned to love all of a person, not just the outside.  
  
Despite that, he is still fascinated by my body, and indeed, over the course of our time here he has laid over me for hours, examining every inch of it. No part of me has he left untasted, and he claims that certain parts are as sweet as honey to him. I force myself to lie still while he does this, while he spends sweet moments petting my flesh until it aches and I am biting my lips in an attempt not to scream.  
  
The lion which resides over my heart was of particular interest to him, and so one day, to distract myself from the sweet torture he was putting me through, I told him the story of Inanna and the great hero, Gilgamesh, and of his lover Enkidu. He finds you immensely amusing, my Inanna, something which, no doubt, pleases you, my lovely whore goddess. How well aware I am of your often broad sense of humor.  
  
"Gilgamesh was a mighty -- ah, yes -- a mighty warrior king many, many years ago," I said, closing my eyes against the sight of him lapping at my nipple like a cat. "He was tall, and broad, and possessed the strength of ten oxen, but he was lonely. He had no one to share his life with."  
  
"Poor man," my torturer murmured from somewhere on my chest. "Go on, tell me more, Kai," he encouraged me, while he moved to my other nipple to continue his tormenting.  
  
"Then one day, another man appeared out of the great desert. This one was shorter, and darker than the golden Gilgamesh, and he was covered with hair."  
  
That made Obiareus look up in surprise. "Covered with hair?"  
  
"Yes," I said, putting Obiareus' heavy braid to my nose. His hair always smelled of lavender. "He was covered with hair, and in fact, some people took him for one of the great apes that live in the mountains rather than a man."  
  
"What is an ape?" Obiareus asked, once again ducking his head. He began to move lower along my torso.  
  
"Well ... that is another story," I said to hold him off, and he chuckled. "The hairy man's name was Enkidu, and he began earning himself a reputation almost immediately by boasting he could best any man in Mesopotamia-ah-ah gods Obia ..."  
  
Obiareus had reached my straining manhood and was using only the tip of his tongue to explore the very slit of it, drawing the pearls of my essence out and savoring them. It was all I could do to refrain from thrusting up into his scalding mouth -- ah, how well he had learned this lesson! After a few more delicate licks, the little demon said softly, "Kaigan. Open your eyes, Philetor, and look at me."  
  
I dragged my heavy lids open and focused on him, certain it would be my undoing. He lay across my thighs, his beautiful golden body sky-clad, and his face holding an expression at once impish and adoring. One of his hands held my phallus, the other he used to prop himself up. "You have the most beautiful voice," he said, his own voice husky. "It is almost as beautiful as your body. I could listen to you all day, while I kissed and licked and sucked you." Suiting actions to words, he briefly lowered his mouth over me, descending once and then slowly, slowing rising. I gasped and felt my legs begin to tremble. "I cannot get over your beautiful cock," he murmured to it, and I swallowed hard in an attempt to regain my rapidly deteriorating control. "I first thought it was mutilation, but now -- it is beautiful. And your taste is beyond delicious -- how odd I never thought of doing this before."  
  
Quickly rising, he shifted, moving down my body and settling between my legs. I breathed deeply, thinking that perhaps the torture would end -- I was caught on the knife's edge, wanting and not wanting burning in my brain like a fever. "Tell me more about this hairy man, Kaigan," he commanded softly, running his hands feather-light over my legs.  
  
After a few more deep breaths, I managed to continue. "Enkidu fought his way through all the warriors of the great city of Ur," I said softly, watching him worship my body with his mouth and hands. It was sweet, so sweet, to be loved this way. "Finally, there was no one left for him to fight except the king, so Gilgamesh himself stepped out and offered to wrestle."  
  
"Ah, I enjoy wrestling," Obiareus said, but the humor in the look he shot me told me he meant a different kind of wrestling.  
  
"They fought for many days and nights, neither one of them able to gain the upper hand," I told him. He moved further down until he was level with my feet. "They fought until they were both exhausted and laughing for the sheer joy of battle. Finally, Gilgamesh broke away and offered Enkidu his hand in friendship, as an equal. And Enkidu took it, knowing he had finally met his match."  
  
"Turn over, Kai."  
  
My breath stopped in my throat and it was only by dint of will that I managed to avoid spilling my seed then and there. The heat in his eyes scorched me like the deserts of Assyria. Swallowing heavily, I did as he asked, allowing him to arrange me to his liking, on my knees with my head pillowed on my arms and my legs spread. Both our himations were spread out beneath me, making the grass soft and comfortable under my knees. But I would have held this pose for him were I kneeling on solid rock.  
  
"What happened then?" he asked, and it took me a while to realize he was expecting me to continue my story.  
  
I closed my eyes and panted with want, but managed to find my voice finally. "They had many adventures, Gilgamesh and Enkidu," I said hoarsely. "And with each one, their love for each other and their fame grew. Yes ... oh, yes, my Kleinos, please ..." He was kissing his way down my back as I spoke, and when he neared the place where my body split, he began using his talented tongue. First, he tasted my caste-mark, then moved lower, right into the very center of me. I nearly sobbed aloud with the pleasure of it, burning in my head. My cock ached to be touched, but I would not, I would let my Kleinos, my demon lover, drive me insane first, since I knew he would, and I knew he would catch me when I fell.  
  
"Did they love each other like this?" he asked, his voice muffled between the cheeks of my ass.  
  
His pointed tongue darted inside me and I cried out. "Yes! Oh, gods, yes ... but no one could love as well as you, my Kleinos ... ah!" For long, wonderful and terrible minutes he tasted my center and I truly believed I would die with the pleasure of it. His tongue wracked me with agonizing joy, burning and anointing me all at the same time. But then he backed away, and my voice was filled with longing to have him back. "Take me, Obia, please ..." I begged him hoarsely.  
  
"I will, my Philetor, my barbarian," he replied softly, and I heard him draw the pot of oil to himself.  
  
When his warm, slick fingers found its way inside me, I relaxed utterly. I gave myself over to his keeping, content and humming in satisfaction; how well he knew my body, and how intimately! When his fingers withdrew, he replaced them with something hotter and thicker almost immediately, so that I had no time to mourn their loss.  
  
Obiareus pressed himself inside me gently and carefully. His generous phallus filled me to the brim and over and his warm hands held me as delicately as if I were a blossom of oleander, or a dove quivering and afraid. I cried out again when I felt his skin meet mine, knowing that he was sheathed completely inside me, feeling his hot length measuring itself along my channel.  
  
He draped himself across my back and wrapped his arms around me. I felt him shaking -- or perhaps that was me shaking, or perhaps even both of us -- and I could barely catch my breath. "Oh, Kaigan ..." he whispered, and his hips made minute thrusting motions, bringing me more pleasure than I could have imagined. "So good this is, to join with you ..." he wiped his sweaty face on the skin of my back and his sweat mingled with mine, trickling down my shoulder blade and dripping on our make-shift pallets.  
  
After a long moment where neither of us moved, where we simply breathed and felt our hearts begin to beat in rapid time with each other, he pushed himself back up and began a long, slow, excruciating withdrawal, one that left me in spasms with need. I clenched at him when he was half-way out of me, completely without volition -- my body reacting to losing that which it adored. I heard him gasp and he froze for an instant, then he slammed back into me, wringing yet another shout from my lips.  
  
"Oh no ... oh, I must, oh, oh, my Philetor ..." he sobbed, as he began a frantic, almost punishing pace, thrusting in and out of me, as inexorable as tide and as strong. I clutched at the cloth beneath me and met every thrust as best I could, his movements wrenching cries of ecstasy from me over and over.  
  
"Want it!" I managed to gasp as he pounded me. "Now, my Kleinos, please, my love, please," I begged him raggedly. One of his slick, warm hands found me and squeezed, just as he rammed into me deeply and froze, his keening wail of completion echoing off the cliffs. I took up his cry and magnified it, as white light bloomed around us and I lost my wits to the overweening pleasure he brought me.  
  
Some long, unmeasured time later, I came back to myself to find my Kleinos still buried deeply within me. I was lying on my side and he was pressed against my back; his hands were slowly, delicately caressing me. I caught them and shakily lifted them to my lips, pressing kisses against them.  
  
After another quiet moment, he murmured, "So, did Gilgamesh and Kenidu live happily ever after, Kai?" His voice sounded hoarse.  
  
I had to clear my own throat before I could speak. "Enkidu, Obia, and the answer to that is yes and no." I lay dreamily content within the arms of my Kleinos, and continued speaking without thinking. "Inanna grew jealous of their love for each other, and killed Enkidu in an attempt to get Gilgamesh to love only her." I felt Obiareus stiffen behind me, but I patted his hands reassuringly. "When that happened, Gilgamesh went on his most famous quest of all, and ventured even down into the underworld where souls go after death to retrieve his lost love."  
  
"Did he find him?" Obiareus asked, clutching my hands.  
  
"Yes," I said. "And Inanna was forced to recognize that their love was greater than anything she could overcome. So she brought them back to the world above, and as far as I know, they are living still, fighting and loving and having adventures."  
  
I felt his smile as he pressed his mouth to my back. I was feeling the languor that a great tumble always produced in me, so I was nearly asleep when I heard him murmur, "I would go the underworld for you, my Philetor, my Kaigan."  
  
"As I would for you, Kleinos, my Obiareus," I mumbled in reply, though he may not have heard me, since he was lightly snoring. Within moments, I'm sure I was as well, so it didn't occur to me until later exactly what he had said to me, exactly what I had replied to. When it did, my heart sang with it.

* * *

**OBIAREUS:**  
  
Yet more days flew by. There was so much yet to learn, and yet our time here disappeared until there was precious little left. I felt different, slowly, and it crept up on me until I realized that somehow I had grown. I had become more a man and less a silly boy, throwing other silly boys into the dust out of pride and arrogance.  
  
I loved hearing of Inanna, and little though I understood her, I began to feel her hand in things. I think Kaigan liked that in me.  
  
I also realized as the moon waned further that I was reluctant to go home. Surely, I thought, it must be because I dreaded facing the other Jheudi, and my mother. Ai, my mother would be furious with the way I had spouted out my anger, and yet I had some cause to be angry as well. It saddened me to know that she would place herself so firmly in the hands of that wretch. There had to be a way to talk to her, to convince her. I was not yet certain that she _knew_ as I did. A seven-year-old boy, knowing nothing of politics, would believe what a woman with aspirations would not. And yet ... my heart ached to realize that perhaps her knowledge was something I denied, for if she knew, she was as dangerous as Palaemon himself.  
  
I buried these thoughts as I sat in the sun and watched my Philetor swim, the dark spring water sliding over his body and framing him. So beautiful was my barbarian that I felt as though I could stay here forever only to look at him.  
  
I scratched at the beard that had grown on my face, so unlike me. Kaigan had told me that it made me look more like the man I had become. I had flushed and kissed him, murmuring something silly about showing him manhood.  
  
Kaigan had a strange power over me. He made me happy in a way I never would have thought possible. His love, as he had promised, was quiet and undemanding, and I wondered at the warning he had tried to ply on me at the beginning. He had told me there were many things I did not know about him, and ... I had thought somehow that he would cleave himself to me more tightly. The thought that he avoided showing his heart because I was so tender about mine gave me a strange pang, and yet ... if he showed me his whole heart, he only left himself to be hurt. And I would not hurt him, if I could help it.  
  
But what of returning home?  
  
"Ai," I breathed aloud, shaking my head to clear it.  
  
"Ai?" Kai asked suddenly, hauling himself out of the water and onto the rock in front of me and sweeping the water from his body with his hands.  
  
"Ai, you are splashing!" I exclaimed, laughing, and he shook his hands out over me playfully. Then he tugged me to my feet and crushed me to him, dripping on my sandals as the water on his body soaked me.  
  
"There, you are wet through," he teased, rubbing his beard against my neck as I laughed.  
  
"Not _through,_ " I corrected impishly, and let him see the fire in my eyes, a fire that never, somehow, seemed to go out.  
  
"Mmm," he rumbled, and I did not mind when his wet mouth found mine, his hands cupping my head as he kissed me slowly, belying the heat growing between us. I slipped my hands over his shoulders and back, warming his skin where the water was drying. I found his caste-mark and played my fingers over it, marveling as I had done a thousand times at the things he had seen and done. His loyalty and devotion were so strong that I felt pale and humbled beside him. Had I ever been so honorable?  
  
Kaigan's hands slid down to my hips, then around, and before I knew it he was lifting me against him. I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him. He carried me to the soft grass where our himations lay perpetually now, and lowered me to them.  
  
"My Kleinos," he murmured softly against my throat, reaching into his pack and drawing out the oil pot. "I have watched you become so much during this time."  
  
I smiled up into the sky. "Ah, yes," I moaned as his fingers teased at me and then deftly, carefully opened me. "Ah, Kai ..." I shuddered and moved against his hand, clinging to him. When his slicked hand guided his heat into me, I closed my eyes and thanked Inanna for sending him to me. When he held me tightly and began to move, I arched against him and pulled him closer, and for a moment wondered how it was possible for me to be without this, without him. When he shifted and rolled me atop him, I arched further and kept my face to the sky.  
  
Ai, it was too much. I braced myself against his chest, against Inanna's lion, and stared into the clouds. His rich, beautiful sounds echoed through my head as his hands moved me over him gently. Kaigan filled me, over and over, and soon my cries joined his. He wrapped his long hand around my shaft and then it was over -- a breath, a shudder, a shout, and Inanna herself felt us.  
  
I sank over him, resting, remembering to breathe. "Kai," I murmured, languid and sleepy.  
  
"Yes, Obia."  
  
"Do you believe Inanna sent you to me?"  
  
He went still, his stroking hands finding a place on my back and staying there. "Or she sent you to me," he almost whispered, as though sleepy.  
  
I adjusted myself over him and reached up to play my fingertips through his beard. "You must thank her for me, then."  
  
Kaigan's happy sigh sounded against my ear, still pressed to his heart. "She hears you," he told me, and I could feel his smile.  
  


* * *

**KAIGAN:**  
  
As much as I hate to admit it, our time together is nearly done. The moon has waxed and waned twice since we found our way here, to the place I've come to think of as 'ours.' I lie here this fine, cool morning, hearing the far-off bleating of the sheep and goats as they are let out for their daily ramble, and hold my Kleinos tightly against me -- against the time of our leaving. As he usually does, he has wound himself around my long body, and rested his head on my heart. He will wake soon, I'm sure, and perhaps we'll make love again before we have to break our camp and return to Knossos.  
  
What will happen then, I wonder? Will he simply return to the barracks with the other bachelor Jheudi, or will he wish to find a place with me, to stay with me, as I so much want him to do?  
  
He has changed my life, my Kleinos, and I want so much to hear him say the words, to hear him declare himself Parastates to me. I had taken the time to re-familiarize myself with the 'ritual' that Xanthus attempted to trick me with -- not that I let him know that. I'm glad that I disobeyed that small voice that told me it was a bad idea -- glad that I listened instead to the sarcastic wit of my patron goddess, glad that I challenged this beautiful boy to fight me for his freedom. Very glad that he lost the bet. I hope he is as glad of it.  
  
But we are Jheudi, and we have a responsibility to the king and to the people of Knossos. Even though I was not born of Kreta, I accepted the labrys when it was offered me and that means that I accepted the onus of behaving like a Jheudi and following Jheudi ways. And so has my Kleinos, and as he was born here, he understands the burden of responsibility even deeper than I.  
  
If he will have me, I will accept him as my Parastates, as my perioikos, and do my best to build us a life together as a pair. I know I am far older than he, and a small part of me wonders if it is fair to him, if it is selfish of me to bind him to a man who cannot have more than a double handful of good years left in him.  
  
As my thoughts wandered, a shaft of sunlight suddenly hit us where we lay, setting his glorious hair on fire and warming us both. His hands on me tightened fractionally as he snuffed and squirmed his way awake, and his eyes -- now green, now blue, now gray -- opened to meet mine. "Good morrow, Philetor," he whispered huskily, as he stretched up to cover my mouth with his.  
  
Selfish or not, I will do whatever I must to keep this treasure by me for the rest of my days.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He loved me again, slowly this time, wracking shudders and agonized cries from me, his teasing sweet and terrible. The walk to Knossos would be a long one, yet far too short. Our two moons were done, and I ... I had a decision to make.  
  
Perhaps there should have been no decision. He had brought me such passion, taught me such things as to make me feel small in the world. No longer the center of Knossos, no, I was only another inhabitant in a world with as many gods as peoples, and so many peoples great and worthy. It was humbling. My Kaigan had brought me more knowledge than perhaps I had once wanted, but now I drank of it greedily. I demanded more tales, more myths, more of Inanna and her troubles. I wanted to hear more about the strange, heavy-antlered stag gods and green-leaf goddesses that his Siobhan had worshipped. I even yearned to know more about the dark cat beings and jackal-headed creatures that had lived in the river realm of his Aegyptian lover.  
  
But was it enough to stay with him for wisdom and passion and tales of the stars? He had given me so much, sheltered me even as he awakened me, and I had nothing to give him in return but my heart. Ai, and that made such a damaged gift, as he knew better than anyone else. He was the only one who had heard the truth of Heiro without scoffing at me. That alone should have seen me bound to him for all eternity, as invaluable as it was.  
  
He deserved love. He deserved the devotion of Gilgamesh to his Enkidu. Did I have _that_ to give?  
  
Most of our day was spent in pensive silence as we pondered what lay before us. Surely, we were axe-brothers to the death, but the idea of more, the idea of binding myself to him as Parastates both frightened and thrilled me. I did not know if I could bring myself to it, and yet ... I did not know if I could live without it.  
  
When we reached the town proper a goodly while before sunset, he turned to me.  
  
"You are released, my Kleinos," he said, his voice carrying a tremor. "The choice is now yours to make. If I have treated you ill, you may have your recourse now. I will not demur."  
  
Ai, but my heart ached. He would not look at me. When at last he raised his eyes to mine, I turned my face away. A long silence stretched between us before I finally found my voice.  
  
"I must think," I said, intending to sound clear and firm, but only managing a whisper. "Unlike the gods of which you speak, I am not so certain of my place ..." I had intended to say "at your side," but could not finish. Bowing my head to him, I turned and strode away.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
"You are released, my Kleinos. The choice is now yours to make. If I have treated you ill, you may have your recourse now. I will not demur." Ah, Inanna -- how hard indeed to utter those words. But they were needed words, words that I knew both of us were required to hear.  
  
I forced myself to meet his eyes, and was heartsick when he turned away from me. Now that our time together was past, what would he do? There was nothing I wouldn't do to keep him with me -- nothing, except to force him. That, I would never do. My Kleinos was the eagle, the wild hawk, and I could not, would not, keep him caged.  
  
After long, painful silence, his soft voice floated to me on the evening breeze. "I must think," he said in a whisper, and my heart broke anew at the pain in his voice. "Unlike the gods of which you speak, I am not so certain of my place ..."  
  
I watched him turn and walk away and could not move to stop him. I wanted to run after him, to take him in my arms, to murmur that he would always have a place with me, that he was my soul, my life, the very breath I breathed. Ah, Inanna, mother and warrior, you have broken my heart again, if you take this boy away from me.  
  
I sank down on a convenient rock by the side of the road and put my head in my hands.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
I heard nothing behind me. He neither moved to follow, nor left the place he stood. I cut through town almost aimlessly, knowing if I went back to my mother's house as the Kleinos tradition demanded, she would only suffer my pained wrath and then wring an apology out of me, for truly she had given me what I needed. She had shown me her true self and unwittingly given me answers for which I had never formed questions.  
  
I moved through town to the other side of the town, a good hour's walk. I still had my staff, my himation, and my pack, and though the evening was hot, I scarcely felt it. I found a place on a white cliff overlooking the northern water and sat, trying not to think of the sea as it looked reflected in his eyes.  
  
"My Kaigan, my barbarian Philetor, what am I to do with you?" I whispered, pleading to whichever gods might be listening for an answer. I had promised to go as far as the underworld for him, but now I was forced to wonder if it had been the ramblings of sleepy satisfaction.  
  
Once, he had said to me, "If you doubt yourself, look to the wisest voice you know, be it that of a god or a man, and listen. Listen to the words in that voice." I laughed quietly, sadly as I realized even now the wisest voice I knew had come to me, but all it would say after that was, "I love you." Truly, not a wise thing to say to one such as me.  
  
Swallowing hard, I looked to the pinkening sky. "Inanna, you made this match, now tell me what to do with it." There was, of course, no answer. Talking to the gods is all well and good, but they seldom reply.  
  
I closed my eyes a long time, tipping my face up to the wind, breathing. My mind would not blank, nor would it stop returning to that foolish and frighteningly wise barbarian who had caught me -- but had not quite caught me yet. And yet ... .  
  
I opened my eyes and stared at the sky and saw the clouds. Kaigan had shown me the sky so often that now I looked at it, night or day, and saw the shapes the gods formed there for their pleasure -- the belted warrior, the crawling crab, the fishes that inhabited the stars. But now I saw the bright white clouds, matched only by the pale cliffs of Knossos, and in their shapes were more animals, more gods yet. There was a horse's head: the visage a thick-necked battle steed, charging, and I sighed into the wind and thought of Heiro wistfully. I wondered if I had the right of him anymore. I had been so young when he died -- would I know him if he came home? But where that thought had once pained me sharply, now I found that the stab of grief was slighter. I was healing.  
  
Shifting on the cliff's edge, I looked into the sky again. There were yet more shapes, some nonsense, some that I could determine. Among them was a pale shape that looked like a large, roaring lion with a curling mane and outstretched claws.  
  
I lay on the stone and stared, and then, then I could not stop my own laughter. Were Inanna here, I would have flung myself at her feet and kissed them.  
  
"You know the way of things, don't you?" I said into the dusky sky, and rose. As quickly as I could, I ran back to where he had been when I'd left him, hoping that he would still be there.  
  
By the time I reached the town center again, it was full dark. Ah, Inanna, Mother, there he was still, not far from where I'd left him. He was slumped onto a rock, looking beaten. My heart felt a stab of pain as I realized the times in those early days when I'd only longed to see him so defeated. Now, I wanted only to die at the sight of it.  
  
He seemed not to hear me as I approached. I opened my mouth to speak his name and was stunned to know that it would not come. After a moment of standing and merely staring, I moved to him and placed my hand gently on his shoulder.  
  
He turned his face up to mine, looking for all the world as though he did not recognize me. Ai, gods, what had I done?  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
I should have trusted you, my goddess, shouldn't I? You always look after me. I do love you, Inanna.  
  
He came back. My golden boy, he came back. He touched me and I looked up, and he was there, shining in the starlight. Your light was in his eyes and I saw that you had touched him and I fell in love with him, all over again.  
  
"My Philetor," he said, and caressed my cheek. "Your ... your Parastates would like to know if you would accept his love?"  
  
Yes, Inanna, those were tears in my eyes. I stood and wrapped Obiareus -- my Parastates -- in my arms and held him tight. He held me just as tightly back. I buried my nose in his glorious hair and let the tears fall.  
  
"I have nothing to offer you but my heart, such as it is, Kaigan," he murmured to my breastbone. "It is sore and tired, and needs a home."  
  
"I offer it one, with all my being," I whispered back. I could not trust my voice to speak louder. "Your heart is as large as Inanna's and as strong, my Kleinos, my Parastates, and it will always have a home in me."  
  
I heard him sigh, and he tightened his arms around me. "Kai, would you come with me to my mother's house? There are things there that I would retrieve ... and if you are with me, I will not have a reason to get into a fight with her."  
  
His voice sounded reluctant and hurt, and I ached for him. But for all that, it still made my heart soar to realize my Kleinos was intending on coming home with me. I nodded and smiled at him, foolishly, I am sure. "Of course, Obia. Are you certain you want me to wait outside?"  
  
"Yes," he replied, linking his arm with mine. We began walking. "If I simply go in and tell her I will speak with her another day, I can put off until later the words that I know we must have."  
  
I hugged him tightly, even as we walked, trying to gift him with my strength for what he must do. We did not know the level of his mother's complicity with Xanthus or even Palaemon, and I bled inside to think that he might end up estranged from his entire family. "Then let us go, and after that, we will go home," I said.  
  
"Yes," was all he said until we reached his mother's villa.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
It took me a while, but I realized it was getting cool in the night air and we were walking on a public road making fools of ourselves -- not that I cared. We moved slowly through the town, in no small part because I dreaded stepping into my mother's door again.  
  
I did not bid him wait by the gate, but just outside the door. Kaigan caught my hand as I turned toward it and pulled me back to him for a moment.  
  
"It will not be much," he said softly. "Go in, get your things ... I will be here. Remember, Obiareus: save the worst for another day."  
  
His words sounded like an admonition, but I knew they rang so because he was almost as eager to be gone from here as I was. I kissed him briefly and pulled away, drawing in a deep breath.  
  
"Inanna will lend you strength," I heard him whisper, and then I stepped through the threshold.  
  
The sight that met my eyes nearly made me recoil. Palaemon was putting things in a trunk. He was putting my _mother's_ things in a trunk.  
  
"Palaemon," I breathed.  
  
At the sound of my voice, he spun about, his himation catching on the hasp of the box. Impatiently, he tugged at it and spoke, his voice tense. "Obiareus. I thought you would be home a good while ago. Perhaps it is just as well." He stepped close to me.  
  
Something in his eyes nearly made me pull away as he reached to put a hand upon my shoulder, but I stood my ground solidly. "What is just as well?"  
  
He closed his eyes briefly, a frown creasing his brow. "Your mother. Eleni ... ."  
  
And I knew. Ai, gods, I knew. A shocked breath whistled into my chest. "No."  
  
"My deepest condolences go to you," the scorpion said, his rich voice, the voice of a king's right hand, rang through my head.  
  
I recoiled from him. "Tell me what happened," I demanded, but my voice, while I would have shouted, came out a hushed whisper.  
  
"She could not--" his voice broke. "Obiareus, your mother and I -- we did not always see the same path--" He glanced up at me, it seemed, to see if his ruse was solid.  
  
"Tell me ... what ... happened."  
  
Palaemon stepped forward, suddenly speaking much too smoothly. "She could not take it, Obia. Heiro's death wounded her more deeply than--"  
  
"Liar," I spat. "Mother was strong where Heiro was concerned -- _too_ strong. Mother _knew._ " I left the words hanging, and Palaemon straightened himself up.  
  
"You are grieving," he said calmly. "You do not know of what you speak. I should think ... perhaps it is wise that you have returned to the barracks -- or came to town with me. Your former Philetor is possibly a bad influence upon your thinking."  
  
I drew in a harsh breath and advanced on him strongly. "Do not speak of him -- your voice sickens me. I will not return home; I come only to take away my things. There has been no influence upon my thinking but that it has grown more sure." When I was very close to him I stopped, glaring, and lowered my voice nearly to a whisper. "I will not accuse you, vulture, for I have no proof. But you and I know." I nodded my head, satisfied with the glint of fear in his eyes. "Yes. We know."  
  
I did not regard him further. I would deal with him another day; if his actions contributed to this crime, I would see Inanna's will done. I moved swiftly to the part of the house formerly mine and laid several things in a trunk, among them a small herb pouch Heiro had made for me, and then, hesitantly, a small statue of Hekate.  
  
As I looked into the trunk at her, the goddess of my mother, the tears began to come. Ai, it was wrong, so wrong, and I did not know how to avenge this. My mother and I had not, as Palaemon had said, always seen the same path, but this ... this was unthinkable.  
  
I calmed myself and slammed closed the trunk. My tears met the hem of my chiton quickly, and then I hefted the trunk onto one shoulder and bore it out.  
  
Kaigan rose to his feet, looking at  me closely. "Obia--"  
  
"We must go," I told him tightly. "I will explain on the way."  
  
When he moved to take the trunk from my shoulder, I could not bring myself to stop him. Suddenly I feared that my legs would not carry me -- until I looked up into the eyes of my Philetor. They were shining with love and something I might have thought was admiration. It heartened me. Of course my legs would carry me: they would carry me home.

* * *

**KAIGAN:**  
  
I am so proud of my Obiareus.  
  
The death of his mother was a shock to me as well, and the fact that the serpent Palaemon was in his house as he discovered it ... Ah, Inanna, had I not a need to worry about him, I would have gone back in there and --  
  
And probably gotten myself ejected from the Jheudi. Yes, Inanna, I will have to -- _temper_ my _temper_. But it will be difficult where my Kleinos -- my Parastates! -- is concerned.  
  
I fear for him now, for he has made a powerful enemy. Palaemon seems determined to destroy Obiareus' family, either by death or by subversion ... but he will have to come through _me_ to get to Obiareus. He will find that a formidable task, I do not doubt.  
  
Hefting the small trunk that carried all my love's worldly possessions, I led him to his new home, a home much smaller than the one he grew in, but which I hoped would be a happier one. When we arrived, I would not let him even unpack, but rather drew him a bath in my bathing chamber, and then took him to my -- our -- bed. I had thought to make long, slow love to him, but instead, I held him as he sobbed out his pain over his mother's unexpected death.  
  
My home in Knossos is humble, nothing like the villa Obiareus grew in. By deference to my age and my skills, the labrys-masters gave me my choice of residing in the bachelor barracks or in a small house near the labrys temple. It wasn't a difficult decision. The house is, indeed, small -- a bedchamber, a great room with a good-sized firepit, and a bathing chamber with a water-closet attached. Ah, the epitome of civilization is to have running water within one's home. Not, of course, that in Kreta one would ever need to run through deep snow to the latrine.  
  
I woke early as I always did, a ridiculous smile on my face despite the night's despair. My Parastates -- what a lovely word! -- was wrapped around me and both of us were tangled in my sheet. The sun was just beginning to warm the air and I heard the arguing of the birds in my garden, as well as the first rumbling of carts in the street as the agora began to open for the day.  
  
While I had so enjoyed our sojourn in the mountains, at the same time, I was happy to be home. Inanna, this austere building had never felt like home to me until now, now that it had been blessed by our loving. I feel very close to you, my goddess, this fine morning, as I lie here with my Obiareus in my arms and smelling the herbs from my small garden.  
  
One thing I have noticed about my Obiareus, he dislikes waking early. He was showing no signs of stirring, nor did I want to cause him further grief, so I eased out from under him and used the water-closet, then went to my garden. It is small, but it faces south and I can see Mount Psiloritis in the distance on a clear day. There, I keep three chatty hens and a goat, and grow herbs -- many of which are not found in Kreta. I brought the seeds with me from my travels, and now they thrive here.  
  
My neighbor had been looking after my animals while I was gone, and my goat bleated happily to see me, knowing she'd be milked. The hens provided me with fresh eggs and I picked a few plums from my small tree -- they were dark and firm and filled with juice. Back inside, I quietly put the eggs in a pot of water, then built up the fire. The milk I left in its pail, but the plums I sliced and took back to my bedchamber.  
  
Obiareus was curled around my pillow, and I smiled to see him so. I stretched back out on the bed and kissed him gently, then rubbed one of the plum slices over his lips and kissed him again.  
  
"Mmm," he smiled as he woke slowly to my ministrations. "We really must do something about this early morning habit of yours, my Philetor," he said, then delicately snapped the plum from my fingers.  
  
I smiled into his sleep-glazed eyes. "I am too old to change my ways, my love," I told him, and his eyes grew softer.  
  
"I like the sound of that," he murmured, bending his head and taking another plum slice. "I am sorry ... I could not tell you ..." he was looking away from me in his embarrassment, and that I could not bear.  
  
"I knew," I told him softly. "Somewhere, somehow, I knew. My heart told me."  
  
"I am grateful for your heart," he replied, then looked at me steadily. "I can tell you now, Kaigan. I love you. With all _my_ heart."  
  
I swallowed, bereft of words. Instead of replying, I kissed him. Then, because it was so sweet, I kissed him again.  
  
We shared many kisses that morn, kissing purely for the sake of kissing, rather than trying to arouse or inflame. We shared kisses over our eggs, as he helped me clean up my garden, even as we left for the temple, later that day, to declare our status as perioikos.  
  
We also talked, speaking of many things as we did the long-neglected chores around my house. Obiareus approved of my humble abode, and was pleased that his belongings -- those that he brought from his mother's house -- fit in so well. When his face grew sad and his eyes hard at the thought of his mother, we talked about Heiro, and I think my Obiareus took comfort in remembering the good times with his brother and his mother, over the sadness of later. I would have loved to have met Heiro, for he sounds like someone I would have been joyous to know.  
  
I do not know what to believe of the dream my Kleinos spoke of, the dream he had under my roof for the first time, the dream of his mother, who came to him, bloodied and asking for vengeance. We have agreed to think on it, to keep our eyes and ears open for any suspicion of betrayal on the part of Palaemon. Inanna, I know you will watch out for us, our coming together has been at your instigation. Now, though, I wonder if you have some other plan on your dainty hands?  
  
Obiareus surprised me that day in his treatment of you as well, Inanna. After seeing the small carving of the snake goddess so prevalent on Kreta, I cheerfully shifted my icon of you, goddess, to make room. You are hardly a jealous wench -- so unlike me! -- and I knew you wouldn't mind sharing with Hekate. But Obiareus made no move to add the carving to the shelf over my bed.  
  
"No," he finally said, slowly but decisively. "I -- I feel that Inanna has done more for me than Hekate ever has." His eyes met mine, and once again, I saw your light in them, Inanna. "I will follow Inanna from now on, Kaigan."  
  
I was pleased, so pleased at his decision. "Perhaps, then, she would prefer a place in the garden?" I asked him, indicating the statue he still held. "In memory of your mother."  
  
He smiled at me, and agreed, so now, Hekate has a place among the herbs. I like to think she is happy there, but only you would know, Inanna.  
  
Later that day, before we went to the temple, we also talked of the suspicions we had of Xanthus' complicity with Palaemon. If it were true, then Palaemon was indeed an enemy to be wary of. "I do not like to be beholden to Xan," Obiareus said once, "but his plotting brought us together, and for that, I owe him."  
  
"I think his treachery more than negates that debt," I told him, my voice tight. I confess I did not and do not like the idea of my Parastates being around Xanthus any more. I would have to work hard to overcome my terrible jealousies. For Obiareus, I would.  
  
"But he is still my friend, and an axe brother, and a friend to my family -- what there is of it," Obiareus said mildly. "I will have to confront him, sooner or later -- if for no other reason then to let him know that his duplicity did not work."  
  
I rested my hand on Obiareus' shoulder. "Would you like me to come with you?" I asked him.  
  
He turned and gave me a brilliant smile, before wrapping his arms around my middle and hugging me tightly. "My Kaigan. I do not want to be parted from you for even an instant," he told me, making my heart sing. "But this is something I need to do alone ... you do understand?"  
  
"Of course I do," I said, and kissed him gently.  
  


* * *

  
**OBIAREUS:**  
  
He was in the baths, as were all the others. I had been confused, so confused, wondering if this heat blooming in my heart was love. I had wondered if it was possible to enjoy the care and ministrations of a man so unlike me and feel something that was so like healing. What could they possibly have to do with each other? My brother's untimely death had left me bereft; he had always been a father to me, and more a friend than any Jheudi.  
  
But Kaigan was healing my bereavement, and had become that true a friend to me. Kaigan was no father figure. Kaigan was hot, explosive desire and spectacular, daring battle and a deep, rumbling voice with stories to tell of the stars. When he wrapped his long, lean body around me or buried himself in me or accepted me into him, I was safe. Even when he bested me in playful combat -- which he still did far more often than not -- I was safe. He had taught me to be humble as well as kind. He had taught me to be reasonable when I thought with my heart.  
  
But now I knew where I belonged. Kaigan's presence held its own inside me beyond doubt as I approached Xanthus. I felt very keenly the difference between what he and I had shared and what I now had with Kaigan; regret stabbed at me as I realized how badly I had treated the Jheudi who had wanted me as perioikos.  
  
"Obiareus," he said, his voice formal as I approached. I bowed, equally formally.  
  
"Xanthus. I came to ... to have a word with you." I glanced around at the other Jheudi as the bath attendants began to light the lamps. In the flickering light, I watched their suspicious eyes and realized suddenly that I had never belonged with them as any more than another axe-brother, no matter all my mother's designs on a place in society with me at her side and Palaemon behind her. "I am not sure that now is the time."  
  
"Oh, come now," Xanthus said, and pushed away from the wall. "You are among friends, though I am surprised to see my Obiareus so fresh from two moons with his Philetor. Has he bested you too many times for your taste? Has he driven you into the ground too often, dirtying your chiton? Have you come back to me, my perioikos?" His voice held the sneer I now vaguely remembered from the night he'd sent me with Kaigan, and while I felt I owed him thanks, at least, for that, I grew angry at his assumptions.  
  
"I came," I told him as calmly as I could, "to offer my apologies for treating you so badly. I came to tell you I was sorry to leave you on so many nights, in spite of your recent ill treatment of me. I came to tell you I wished to remain your brother in axe and friendship in spite of your treachery." He blinked in surprise, but I ignored his expression and the others as they indecisively stepped closer and then moved away. Forever will I know the smell of steamed tile and copper vats and think of my anger and the pain of betrayal.  
  
"You--?" he began, but I swept my hand through the steam.  
  
"But now I see," I pressed on thoughtfully. "Your treachery then was only part of a larger plan, was it not? Send the vain, self-indulgent Obiareus off into the wilds with the savage new Jheudi. Dirty him, sully him, watch him return to his mother's house and his lover's bed with tears and gratefulness in his eyes. Was that not it? Tell me, Xanthus, for if I have the wrong of it, I am truly confused as to your motives."  
  
His silence was not nearly as gratifying as it once might have been; perhaps it was because I had never intended to hurt him, only to make myself plain. Perhaps it was because my anger had died when I had accepted Kaigan's love.  
  
After opening and closing his mouth like the caught fish he once compared me to, he seemed to find his backbone. "I hoped that you would come to me. I was counseled that this was the way. I ... I only wanted to love you. "  
  
"Love me?" I sighed, pressing down the sharply nagging wonder at who would counsel him so. "Love is pure, Xanthus. It is Enkidu and Gilgamesh, wrestling in the stars because they are true to one another beyond personal gain and rivalry, beyond death itself. It is passion and closeness and light. It is knowing you are safe to trust the one at your back." My eyes widened as I realized the image that came instantly to my mind: Kaigan, in my dream, his back pressed to mine, a staff in his hand and his own courage flowing through my heart as we faced down the wolves that wished to claim us.  
  
"Love is vengeance, too," I whispered, shaking my head. "Love is Inanna's wrath brought down on those who stand in the way of those devoted to her." I bent and unclasped the dagger that Xanthus had packed in my things, now seemingly so long ago, and gripped its hilt. His eyes went wide and openly fearful, silently pleading with me to stop. But the truth was that regardless of what Xanthus thought he knew of me, there was fear in his eyes. Kaigan alone knew my heart. Kaigan knew I had no more will in me to harm Xanthus, as Xanthus had to truly love me.  
  
"Thankfully for you," I said softly, still looking at my former bedmate, "love is also knowing that punishment is not mine to dole. I can avenge treason against a lover and a friend, but I cannot avenge a gift, even one so unwittingly given as love." I dropped the dagger at his feet. Where once I had wondered at its meaning, now I no longer cared.  
  
"I will fight for you, should you have a need," I promised him as I turned away, "as I would for any axe-brother. My loyalty to the king stands." I walked from the baths without turning back, hoping Kaigan would find me. Hoping he would understand why I floundered so much and took so long to see him for the love I so desperately needed. Hoping, above all else, that he would still call me Parastates.  
  


* * *

  
**KAIGAN:**  
  
When Obiareus didn't return for so long, I finally overcame my reluctance and went looking for him. Yes, I had told him I'd allow him this time alone, to deal with his former lover, but -- I confess, I was worried. He is still so wounded, and after the latest shock about his mother ... My Obia had done me proud, though, and despite our suspicions about Xanthus, he had merely left him a knife and offered him continued friendship. This I heard from bystanders, as I did not see the actual scene ... but it must have been a bad one. And, if I have anything to do about it -- and I believe I do -- friendship will be all that is offered Xanthus by Obiareus.  
  
I saw Obia leave the baths as I approached -- he did not see me. He kept his head high and walked out like a ship under full sail; regal and proud. But his pride was no longer borne of vain over-confidence, it was borne of sweat and effort, and therefore well-deserved.  
  
Waiting until I was certain he was gone, I entered the baths and approached Xanthus, who still stood alone, white-faced and swaying. I had no pity for him at all. "What was it that you drugged him with?" I asked him, my voice as pleasant as I could force it to be.  
  
"It ... it was a tincture of poppy," he said, his voice low and hitching. He must have realized what he said of a sudden, for his head snapped up and his eyes grew wide. "I did not mean anything by it, truly, it was harmless--"  
  
"For a labrys-bearer, you are remarkably stupid," I told him. I made no effort to modulate my voice, nor did I try to broadcast -- I was merely stating facts. But the room was suddenly silent. "Poppy in wine is a dangerous, almost deadly, combination. You could have harmed him irreparably -- even killed him."  
  
Were it possible for his face to blanch further, it would have. "No ..." he whispered. "He told me that ... he said it was ... no ..."  
  
"Yes," I countered, my eyes narrowing as I contemplated who _he_ might be, all too afraid I knew the answer. "You have shown a remarkable lack of sense and judgment, Xanthus, both in your actions and in whom you trust. I do not believe that I could count on you to guard my back." I heard a gasp from somewhere around us, but did not take my eyes from his stricken ones. "In any event, you will refrain from social contact with my Parastates in the future, do you understand? I invoke the old tradition, and demand your compliance in this."  
  
"P-p-parastates?" Xanthus stammered. "Obiareus?"  
  
"Yes, Xanthus. Obiareus is my Parastates and my perioikos -- despite all your best intentions." I tried, Inanna, I truly did try to control the anger I felt at his betrayal of my beloved. It would not serve any purpose to further threaten him -- in the bath or elsewhere, no matter how good it would make me feel. Despite my best intentions, though, Xanthus looked as though I had gored him and left him for dead. That was not my intent, Inanna. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly; Xanthus, for all he was a back-stabbing, insincere, cowardly son-of-an-ass was also a Jheudi, an axe brother. My oath to the king stood.  
  
I straightened, turned squarely, and walked out, intending on finding my Parastates and losing myself in his arms.  
  
I found him settled on a rock just off the trail that lead into the hills above Knossos -- where I thought he might be. Without a word, I sat myself down between his long, golden legs and leaned back against him -- so warm, so alive and vibrant, and once again I found myself thanking the gods and goddesses who looked after such as me that I had this wonderful young man in my life. _In_ my life? He _was_ my life, truly, and I realized that, for the first time since my beloved Siobhan had died, I had purpose, I had reason to be. No matter that I had broken my oath.  
  
Yes, Inanna, you can stop snickering now.  
  
We sat together in the gathering gloom, watching the sun set fire to the sea below us. Knossos slowly lit from within with the light of lamps, and from far away, I heard the sound of singing. Bees droned by us, desperate to return to their homes before the night fell, and far, far above, I saw a speck -- an eagle? It might have been. But the crepuscular light -- not to mention my ancient eyes -- wouldn't let me determine it for certain.  
  
Obiareus' arms came around me as the light faded, and he rested his chin on my head. "I'm glad you found me," he said. "I was a little -- concerned, Kaigan," he continued quietly.  
  
"Of what, my Parastates?" I asked softly, watching the sea turn from golden fire to dark wine.  
  
"Of anything, of everything," he replied, and I heard the relief and laughter in his voice. He had changed too, my Kleinos, my Parastates, my golden one. He was happier now, and I knew that he, too, had come to find purpose. It pleased me that he found his purpose in me, as I found mine in him. "I was concerned that you would think me shallow. That you would want ... would not want to call me Parastates. Do you think ..."  
  
"I think," I interrupted him gently and thoughtfully, "that if I stay here too long, my backside will undoubtedly freeze and you will have to build a house around me. For I'll be unable to move. _That_ is what I think."  
  
He laughed, and the sound rang down the hills and filled my heart. "If that is what you wish, my Philetor," he replied, and hugged me tightly. "I will build you a palace, then, one to even rival our king's home; with a hundred baths and two score water closets, and sheets of the finest linen upon the beds filled with the softest down. People will come from thousands of leagues around and marvel at the house of Kaigan, the barbarian Jheudi, the beloved of Obiareus."  
  
"They will," I said dryly, smiling in the dimness.  
  
"Of course they will," he said, and his voice was sure. "It will last as long as our love, which will be forever."  
  
My smile faded. Nothing lasted forever; this I knew all too well. I had learned my lesson, and would cherish every day I had with my Obia, treating each as if it would be the last. But he was young, so much younger than I, and the years stretched before him unblemished by fear or worry. I knew better -- but would I tell him of the things I had seen in my travels before coming to Kreta, of the ruined towers, the lost civilizations, the wandering peoples whose homes had been destroyed by the whim of a god or a man?  
  
"Don't you agree, my Kaigan?" Obiareus was saying, and his voice sounded like honey tastes.  
  
"Of course I do," I murmured, and turned my head enough to kiss him.

end

**Author's Note:**

> Additional notes, errata, and glossary, available [here.](http://www.mrshamill.com/momskitchen/labrysnotes.html)


End file.
